


First In Friendship

by find_nowhere



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 10:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 64,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5201756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/find_nowhere/pseuds/find_nowhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Everyone hates their lives in this miserable version of Pawnee. Except Donna - she's doing alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome To Pawnee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poisoninthewater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisoninthewater/gifts).



> Well, I've boarded the crazy train for this one. I don't normally write things that are particularly AU and this is AU in quite a traditional sense - everyone's still in Pawnee, but things panned out differently. I'm not sure exactly when this takes place in the grand scheme of things and I hope that's alright. If not...whateva!
> 
> If this is awful, blame the person it's gifted to. This is all her fault. 
> 
> Choo choo! (That's the sound of the crazy train.)
> 
> 12/8/15: I downed the rating to T because apparently I can't write M-rated Parks and Rec. It just isn't happening.

Once upon a time, Leslie Knope was a public servant. She worked as Deputy in the Parks and Recreation Department. She had potential and a promising career ahead of her. Hell, she could have become President of the United States one day. Now she drives a green moped to and from community college where she takes business classes with twenty-somethings. She's been taking business classes for five years now because she can only seem to be a part-time student, although she doesn't do anything else. After a scandal ruined her career and her life spiraled out of control, she couldn't seem to do much at all. She went from overachieving workaholic to this...whatever this was. She couldn't pull herself back up by her proverbial boot-straps because she couldn't find her proverbial boots. Then she gave up looking for them and started racking up student loan debt after her entire life's savings evaporated.

Arriving home from class, she sees that there are several police cars on the street in front of the house she shares with her boyfriend. Pawnee is a safe town, she thinks. She still believes in the idyllic, little township, even though it stopped believing in her. She stopped believing in herself too.

She has a purple, sparkle backpack. She wanted to fit in with the younger students, so she got this backpack. It didn't help. She gets off of her moped and clutches the straps tightly, feeling a bit nervous about the police cars. Everything is quiet. It's too quiet. Something's wrong.

She looks sadly at the huge pit next to the house - a reminder of her failure. Her eyes then hone in on the front door. It's ajar. Was there a break-in?

A second later, two police officers exit with a scruffy, younger man between them, his hands cuffed behind his back. He's going with them without a fight, but looks unmistakably sullen about the ordeal.

"Andy!" Leslie exclaims. "What's going on?!"

~~~~~

Andy Dwyer never had very much potential, especially when lined up next to Leslie Knope. When Leslie was Deputy of Parks and Recreation, Andy shined shoes. It was a novel occupation, but had no upward mobility. It didn't have sideways mobility either. Nor did it pay very well. Leslie had wanted to pay him more, but being a mid-level bureaucrat didn't give her much pull when it came to the salary of the endearingly dopey fellow working the novelty job.

After binge-watching _Breaking Bad_ , Andy decided to start cooking meth to supplement his income. He fancied himself the Heisenberg of Pawnee and even had a hat like the one Walt wore. He put the hat on when he cooked and imagined he was a chemistry teacher. He called himself Mr. Heisenburger and imagined whole elaborate scenarios that he role-played out in the shed next to his house. At some point, one of Mr. Heisenburger's scenarios involved testing his product. He told himself it was quality assurance. Then one day he blew a giant hole in the ground next to his house where the shed once stood. By then, Andy had a secret meth addiction.

The pit by his house became Leslie's pet project and Andy became a special side-project. Leslie thought he did have potential. She didn't even realize he was making and using illegal drugs on a regular basis. Her incredibly optimistic world-view made her completely blind to Andy's criminal exploits. Although not the brightest bulb in the box, Andy became aware of this on a subliminal level. The two were drawn to one another - a moth to a flame. Little did they know that the moth would be fried and the flame would be snuffed out.

Andy liked Leslie. At least he told himself he did, much like how he told himself he was doing quality assurance when he started using his own meth. Their attraction to one another was awkward at best. After Leslie's fall from grace, one of the first tasks on her list was to have an awkward sexual encounter with the shoe shine guy. And she did. The rest was a roller coaster than trundled to a halt with her moving into his house next to the pit, which reminded her continually of her failures. The two then maintained a symbiotic, sexless, cuddle-relationship, which revolved around Leslie giving Andy money and Andy promising he wasn't using it to buy drugs in Eagleton.

"At least support the local Pawnee drug dealers," Leslie would insist, dejectedly.

Now, Andy was being carted off by the police. He'd been caught (again) at last, but there his savior stood, beside her green moped in the driveway. Her sparkle backpack shimmers, making her look like a middle-aged fairy there to rescue him. He feels some combination of shame and acceptance. This was inevitable. He looked toward his feet as he shuffled out toward the patrol car, the officers flanking him.

"Andy! What's going on?!" Leslie shouts with concern and surprise.

He looks up and says, "Call Ann, Leslie. Just call Ann."

~~~~~

Ann Perkins is a mediocre public defender. She has one of the worst success rates of any attorney in Indiana. She wanted to be a nurse, but something went wrong along the way. She defended Andy for his previous drug conviction and had become acquainted with Leslie as a result. She actually won that case and got him probation and community service. She accomplished it by wildly confusing every other person involved, including herself.

She's sitting behind a cluttered desk, engaged in a vain attempt to find a file that seems to have gone missing among all of the other files. Pawnee was a relatively safe town and she found herself defending the most mundane cases. There were only mundane cases in Pawnee. The phone rings and she jumps, knocking over a stack of papers. This makes her flustered and she fumbles for the phone, knocking another stack from her desk and then dropping the receiver. It clatters against the cheap wood of her desk and then bounces at the end of the cord several times before the gets her hand on it.

"Ann Perkins," she answers and clears her throat. Her palms are sweating at the prospect of a new case.

"Ann, it's Leslie Knope. Andy Dwyer's-"

"Leslie, what's wrong?" She immediately hears the concern in her friend's voice. She knows exactly who Leslie is. They have lunch together several times a week. Leslie Knope is also infamous in the small town. She doesn't know why Leslie thinks she would forget who she was and feel the need to clarify.

"Oh, Ann. You're a tiny, sort of shiny rock in the middle of a vacant lot full of boring rocks," Leslie lets out a big sigh of relief. "Andy's been arrested."

"What? Again? What did he do this time?"

"I don't know. He said to call you. It just happened and I don't know what to do."

"Was it drugs again?"

Leslie gasps, "No! Of course not. He hasn't been doing drugs."

"What about selling them?"

Another gasp, "No! It can't be!"

Ann rubs her temples and goes to rest her elbows on her desk when she knocks over a cup of pens and pencils with the cord of the phone. They scatter all over the floor. She mutters, "Shit."

"What is it?"

"Oh, it's nothing," she says. "I'll meet you downtown. We'll sort this out. I'm sure it's a mistake." Ann knows it's not a mistake. Leslie is painfully oblivious to reality is all.

Ann's reality is drab and currently consists of a huge mess in a tiny office. Her office is so tiny that then door hits her desk whenever someone opens it. She's gotten used to this jarring obtrusion and her paperwork often includes misplaced, squiggly lines of ink from people opening her door and shaking her desk while she's taking notes. There's also a big knick in the desk where the door collides with it on a daily basis. She picks up her brief case, bangs her door into her desk and heads out.

Standing on sidewalk outside is a very masculine, mustached man with a saxophone. He's known as the Pawnee Hermit and he is essentially a town fixture. He plays heavenly jazz music and occasionally sells stunning pieces of delicately handcrafted woodwork. He then uses that money to buy whiskey and breakfast food. His name is actually Ron Swanson. Ann isn't sure where he lives, but he's been a part of Pawnee since her arrival. He's preparing to play and has his saxophone case open in front of him. Ann drops in a few crumpled dollars from her pocket and his eyes narrow. "Ann Perkins," he says, "I don't want handouts. I want money in exchange for my melodic services. I haven't begun to play yet and I can't accept that."

~~~~~

Ron Swanson is a man of mystery. At one point, he was gainfully employed - at least that's what people say. He had either a nervous breakdown or an epiphany that led to him going off the grid. He went completely off the grid, not even a little off. No one's even sure if Ron Swanson is his real name. He has a cabin in the woods somewhere or maybe he lives under the bridge like a troll. Some say he had a wife once. There's speculation that he killed her. He may have also killed his second wife and he might be on the run from the law. Other people say he is a god among men, that he is secretly immortal, that he was sent to Pawnee as a divine guide. People say a lot of things in Pawnee. 

He watches Ann carefully, ensuring that she removes all of her money, which he adamantly refuses to accept. She looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn't. Her face contorts into one of befuddlement and she walks away. He is amused. He revels in the confusion of others. After she leaves, he puts on a pair of sunglasses and a trilby hat then begins to play an upbeat tune. A number of people drop change into his case as they pass, among them is Tom Haverford. Only Tom Haverford doesn't move along, he comes to a complete stop and there he remains.

Tom fancies himself a man of mystery, but he is not. He often roams the streets looking for Ron, seeking him out for advice on every subject imaginable. Ron does actually possess a frightening wealth of knowledge on a wide variety of topics. Tom is constantly trying to start businesses and they constantly fail. He is in massive debt and his girlfriend supports him. His girlfriend, April Ludgate, regularly plots ways to kill him and cover it up. She's discussed these plans with Ron and she's pretty sure he won't be missed. She knows that she won't miss him, that's for sure. Ron would help her hide the body.

"Ron," Tom says with a huge grin. "Ron. Ron. Hey, Ron." Ron continues playing his sax, ignoring him. "Ron. Ron. Ron."

Ron is watching him behind his sunglasses and hoping that he'll give up and move on. Giving up is not something that Tom seems capable of. The much smaller, less masculine man is wearing a suit and tie. He always wears a suit and tie because he's a firm believer in dressing for the job he wants, not the job he has. He hasn't given up despite his perpetual lack of success. The job he wants is CEO of anything. Ron thinks that in some other life he might have respected his determination, but it's hard in this life because he finds Tom so annoying. The only time he enjoys Tom's company is when Tom has failed miserably at something. Ron derives pleasure from the failures of those around him.

"What do you want, Tom?" Ron asks finally and holds his saxophone at his side. He stares angrily at the man over his glasses.

Tom steps closer to him and lowers his voice to a whisper, "I think my girlfriend is planning to murder me."

Ron begins to laugh. His laughter is high-pitched and filled with mirth. It's more of a giggle really. Once he begins laughing, he can't seem to stop. He carefully packs up his sax, laughing all the while.

~~~~~

Across town, April is not plotting to kill Tom. Not at the moment. She's too busy thinking about killing everyone around her to be concerned with her useless boyfriend. April is Director of the the Parks and Recreation Department. She's the youngest director in Pawnee's history. She is and always has been disaffected, lazy and constantly attempts to sabotage everything. She's done so since her first day as an intern. Her entire resume that got her the internship in the first place was a list of lies. She thought at first that whoever hired her didn't read it. They must not have, she said she had been a member of the Apollo 11 crew and she put Vladimir Putin down as a reference. It had been Leslie Knope who hired her. Leslie knew she lied and she said she was looking for an "extra-creative super-special" intern. As Leslie's life spiraled out of control so did April's, but April's spiraled upward and she couldn't get it to stop either.

Her complete and total lack of qualifications made her perfect for a government job, despite her best efforts to be fired every single day. The resent she felt toward Tom was matched only by contempt for the career she accidentally got stuck in. At least it paid well, which was important because she needed to support Tom and all of his stupid, money-pit ideas.

Everyone always needs things from her. She doesn't like being needed and her underlings are all extremely needy. She locks the door to her office, but then they knock and peer in through the window. She needs blinds, but getting blinds and making the government pay for them requires paperwork, which she doesn't like to do. She just stares back at the knockers, expressionlessly. She tries to make them explode with her mind. It never works. They never leave either, not until she lets them in and helps them with their stupid issues. They just stand there and wait for her to get up, no matter how still she sits. Nothing anyone needs is ever important. Maybe some of it was, but she was so under-qualified that she didn't know. 

Whenever anyone needs her to sign off on anything, she refuses to read it and signs it "Cuntzilla." 

As far as she knows, she may have signed Pawnee up for some sort of nuclear test. The military might be coming to drop an A-bomb right on top of the little, shit-hole town in Indiana any moment.

She chuckles as some lady she calls Rhonda stares at her through the window. Rhonda isn't her name, but April doesn't know her name. Her laugh is bitter. No A-bomb is coming to send her to sweet oblivion. She's just the head of the Parks Department and she doubts that anything she ever signs is of any actual importance. She wishes her job mattered, but it doesn't. She's not sure why the department even exists and this is a sentiment she shares with the Pawnee Hermit, Ron. The only part of her job she enjoys is coming in early to change the backgrounds on all of the computers to images of cthulhu that say things like:  _YOUR LIFE IS MEANINGLESS_ and  _THE END IS NEAR._[ ** _  
_**](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS503US503&es_sm=91&q=cthulhu&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0CBoQvwUoAGoVChMI7pDXt8eQyQIVyEcmCh2CxQWH)

The IT guy always changes the backgrounds back to this awful picture of the stupid Pawnee welcome sign.

_Pawnee: First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity_

 


	2. Attorney Ann Saves The Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #BailFail

Ann Perkins lives alone in a mediocre apartment in a mediocre part of Pawnee. Sometimes all of Pawnee seems pretty mediocre. That’s only on good days. Ann can’t really think of a good day she’s had recently. She honestly can’t think of a good day since she started working at the Pawnee Public Defenders Office.

She pours two large glasses of red wine in the kitchen as Leslie sinks dejectedly into her sofa. She asks her, attempting to make conversation, “How exactly did you end up with Andy again?”

She told Leslie she’d take care of everything, failed miserably then felt so horrible that she invited Leslie over for drinks. Now that Leslie is in her apartment, she isn’t entirely sure what to do. She wants to help. She always wants to help. It’s why she wanted to be a nurse. And yet she is not a nuse at all and she’s absolutely terrible at helping.

“I don’t want to talk about Andy,” Leslie says glumly, confirming that Ann is terrible at helping.

“Oh. Sorry.” she walks over and hands a glass to the other woman then takes a seat next to her. She watches as Leslie stares absently at the wine and doesn’t drink. “Sorry about today too...about everything.”

Leslie shrugs, “You tried.” That was true. Ann had tried. She tried very hard. She always did. It seemed that the harder she tried the more than went wrong. She was like King Midas, but instead of everything she touched turning to gold it turns to shit. She has the Turd-Midas Touch.

As fate would have it, Andy was charged with a felony. His bail was very high. Then in a turn of Turd-Midas Touch events, as Ann is trying to get the insane bail lowered, he ends up being remanded. Bail was no longer an option. It all happened so quickly that Ann wasn’t sure what went wrong. Ann was very rarely sure of what was going on in any court situation and bail hearings were very confusing sometimes. Andy wasn’t a flight risk, he sort of had ties to the community...

Ann had dropped her briefcase. The snaps sprung open and papers went flying. The judge didn’t enjoy courtroom dramatics. The judge didn’t enjoy anything ever, she concluded. There was no joy in this judge’s life. In a matter of what felt like seconds, Andy was escorted back to holding. It was done. Ann didn’t fix anything.

Maybe it was for the best, she thinks. It’s for the best for Leslie at least. Maybe. Ann sips her wine and watches Leslie out of the corner of her eye. She feels bad for her. She wished she’d known her before. She’d met her briefly in passing on a few occasions. She didn’t think Leslie remembered her. She’d just been some nobody attorney. She was still a nobody attorney. Ann definitely remembered Leslie from their earlier encounters though. She found it hard to believe that someone like Leslie Knope wouldn’t have a fallback plan in the event that things went terribly wrong. She had seemed like a woman who planned and prepared for everything. The one thing she didn’t prepare for was a shameful resignation and being shunned by Pawnee...or maybe ending up with Andy in this totally stupid situation was her fallback plan.

With a sigh, Leslie says, “This wine is awful. It’s like an explosion of rotten fruit and misery in my mouth.”

“It was on sale,” she says apologetically.

She sighs again, “Andy and I have nothing in common. I don’t know why we’re together except that I knew him from the Parks Department. That’s something we have in common, I guess. He’s the last vestibule that I have left of my old life.”

“He seems nice...for a drug dealer, and he’s sort of cute.” So much for not talking about Andy.

Leslie turns her head slowly to look at Ann, “Is that an appropriate thing for you to say as his lawyer?”

“Oh, I...I didn’t...I,” she stammers. After a deep breath to compose herself, she says, “Add that to the list of reasons I’m a terrible lawyer.”

For a moment, Ann thinks Leslie is going to agree with her and affirm all of her beliefs of her own inadequacy. Instead though, Leslie says, “You can have him. I don’t think I want him anymore.”

“Uh, I don’t...I...no.”

“Is it wrong to break up with someone in jail?”

“I don’t know...it’s-“ Leslie cuts her off, “I can move all of my things out of his house at my leisure with him in jail. That’s a pro. I should make a pro/con list right now. Can I borrow your computer?”

Ann feels suddenly very overwhelmed and says, “Sure?”

Leslie seems to have very little sense of personal property. She also seems quite tipsy from the single glass of rotten fruit and misery. She gets up and vanishes into Ann’s bedroom. Leslie has never been to Ann’s apartment, but she acts if they’ve been best friends for years. Maybe in some other life they would have been. Leslie’s boyfriend is a meth cook and drug dealer and drug addict, but Leslie seems mostly harmless. Ann just isn’t used to anyone being in her space. She’s become very accustomed to being alone. She is dedicated to her career, despite the curse of the Turd-Midas Touch.

She decides to refill their wine glasses and Leslie soon emerges with Ann’s laptop, returning to her place on the sofa. Leslie is typing furiously before Ann can even begin refilling one of the glasses.

“You’ve saved the day, Ann Perkins,” the blonde woman tells her sounding very close to enthusiastic about it,

“Excuse me?” She nearly drops the bottle onto the floor, startled by Leslie’s jovial tone. She catches it by the neck and only a tiny bit splashes out onto the countertop.

“I have seen the light thanks to you. It’s time to turn my life around.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Leslie. All I did was fail miserably at representing a client, which is what I do best.”

“If you weren’t such a useless lawyer I would have had to use my student loan money to pay Andy’s bail...again. I’d be home with him right now, trapped in the same endless cycle of stagnation. But instead, I’m here on your couch making a beautiful pro/con list. Tomorrow, I’ll start packing. I’ll use my student loan money to pay the deposit for my own place and I think I’m going to change to the dental hygienist track.”

“That’s good, I guess. You’re welcome.” The compliment is a bit backhanded. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers, Ann reminds herself. A backhanded compliment is better than no compliment at all and she’s pretty sure it’s the first compliment she’s gotten from anyone in years unless she counts the catcalls she sometimes gets on the street from random cars full of high school boys.

Leslie says with yet another sigh, losing some of her sudden enthusiasm, “I’m sorry, Ann. You're not a useless lawyer," she apologizes quickly. "I used to be a really positive person. I wish you could have met me then.”

Ann frowns a little, disappointed but not entirely unsurprised that she was so unmemorable. She’s also unsure of what to make of the sudden turn of events. She’s happy for Leslie, but she doesn’t like the credit that Leslie seems to want to give her for the tide changing. She sits next to Leslie again and watches her prepare the most elaborate and visually appealing pro/con list that she’s ever seen.

“I’m going to make this into a PowerPoint presentation,” Leslie tells her excitedly. It appears that a bit of the old Leslie is still left inside of the broken Leslie shell.

“You can do better than Andy,” Ann says a bit apprehensively. “I’m not saying that because I’m trying to snatch him out from under you or anything,” she adds quickly. “It’s just, you’re Leslie Knope.”

“I am Leslie Knope,” she says with confidence and raises her glass for a toast. After they clink them together she takes a sip and says, “This doesn’t taste like misery anymore, Ann.”

Ann still thinks it tastes the same.


	3. Meet Mayor Meagle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An egg-cellent chapter.

The office of Pawnee’s mayor is decorated to look like the Oval Office, but the room is square and quite small so the effect is somewhat lost. The chair behind the desk at the far side of the room has also been replaced with a scale replica of the Iron Throne. The Iron Throne is modified such that it has wheels and swivels.

The occupant of the Iron Swivel Throne is facing away from the door, looking out of the large windows behind the desk. The desk is tidy. A stack of memos sits next to the computer monitor which has a celebrity gossip website pulled up on it. On top of the memos is a Sweetums Bobby Bar.

The sky is cloudless, birds chirp and the mayor’s secretary is just outside of the office humming a pleasant tune as she makes coffee. The mayor is taking stock of her domain. She can’t see much of Pawnee through the windows. She pretty much can’t see any of Pawnee. There’s a large bush obscuring her view and beyond the bush is the side of another building. That doesn’t matter. She took stock of her domain when she drove to work in her Mercedes-Benz M-Class. She went over it in her mind’s eye while looking at the bush.

Mayor Donna Meagle is the most loved mayor in Pawnee’s history. According to the most recent opinion poll she is currently the second most popular resident of Pawnee, right after Lil’ Sebastian. Like Leslie Knope, Mayor Meagle began her career in the Department of Parks and Recreation. Donna worked as the office manager and she had no political aspirations. In fact, Donna had few aspirations aside from convincing Jay-Z to leave Beyonce for her.

After quietly observing and learning from the fiery downfall of Leslie, Donna decides she doesn’t want a man (not that she would turn down an offer from Jay-Z). Instead, Donna wants power. Donna wants absolute power. She wants to be properly drunk and mad with sheer power while also being drunk on expensive champagne and surrounded by sexy men responding to her every beck and call. She wants a personal chef and foot massages any time of day. She wants lesser mortals to tremble in her wake.

She imagines throngs of worshippers shouting her name and bowing down before her. She will be treated with reverence and the masses will adore and fear her.

She knows her goals are large. Huge, even. Some might say that they’re unrealistic. She’s in the camp that shoots for the stars and then hopes to crash somewhere on the moon. She’d be plenty happy with being Governor of Indiana one day, if not Donna Meagle: Master of the Universe. She knew to start small and she started with Pawnee.

“Mayor Meagle, your coffee is ready,” her secretary said and knocked lightly on the frame of the open door.

Donna turned around in her chair and her secretary deposited a mug of hot coffee on her desk. Donna’s face is on the side of the mug and Donna smiles when she sees her mug on the mug.

“Thank you,” she says and begins to open her Bobby Bar. As she tears the wrapper there is a loud sound behind her. A bang and crack. She jumps, startled. The morning had been so serene. Her secretary’s eyes are wide and she whirls back toward the window. Her own wide eyes slowly narrow and she sees egg running down the glass. The bush did not protect the window from the protein assault.The broken shell is caught on one of the branches of the shrubbery.

Donna stands and goes to the window to investigate. She doesn’t see any odd movement outside, but again, the bush really obscures her view. She peers through the egg goop to look at the shell. It appears that there had been a message written on it in marker. The impact and the morning dew on the bush seems to have smeared the message, making it illegible.

Mayor Meagle has an enemy and this excites her. It is a chance for her to make a display of her power.

“Secretary,” she says, “I want you to put security on my car.”

“For when you leave?” she asks for clarity.

“No. I mean on my car 24-7. I don’t want any fools getting egg on my Benz, girl.”


	4. April Ludgate Plots Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we discover the true identity of Rhonda.

April knows better than to work on her murder plans on a government computer so she’s writing them down on napkins in the tiniest handwriting she can manage instead. She’s at least doing it while at work, so it’s like she’s being paid to figure out the best way to kill her boyfriend and dispose of the body. She likes that idea. This is a job she enjoys. It's a job should really do, one that she could see as a career. Reality unfortunately strikes to spoil the momentary joy of her daydream - once he’s dead though, she’s out of a job so it doesn’t have much job security. Job security is important once she finds a job she actually wants.

She could just break up with Tom, she supposes. She could also quit her job that she hates with every fiber of her being. She’s not a quitter though. Killing Tom isn’t quitting and she’s still on a mission to get fired. Getting fired on purpose wouldn’t make her a quitter either. Leslie Knope told her she could do anything she put her mind to. She hopes this is true and she wonders how Leslie’s doing. She saw in the Pawnee Police Blotter that Andy was arrested again. That poor guy...such an idiot, she thinks. She also thinks he’s sort of sexy. Maybe because he’s a criminal. She doesn’t know for sure what it is about him. She does feel she needs more criminal connections in her life though. She might have to make that happen if he doesn't go to prison or whatever. it might be better if he does go to prison because then she could have some connections "on the inside" too.

While brainstorming ways to off Tom, she also begins thinking of various scandals that she could become involved in that would ruin her un-career in government. She could be forced to resign like Leslie - that would work for her too. It isn’t quite as good as being fired in some dramatic fashion, but it would do. If they asked her to resign and she refused, they would fire her. That would definitely work.

She hears a faint, apprehensive rapping on her office door. it interrupts her musings, which annoys her. She knows exactly who it is without even looking up. She recognizes Rhonda’s knock. She freezes, holding as still as she can. She’s still somewhat convinced that Rhonda can only see her when she moves or when she wears red. She’s not wearing red.

Another series of knocks follows.

April looks up slowly and says loudly and flatly, “God, Rhonda. Just come in already.”

The door opens slowly and Rhonda enters, looking sheepish. No eye contact is made.

“What do you need? Do you need me to sign something? You don’t have anything for me to sign. What’s the problem, Rhonda?”

Rhonda clasps her hands together in front of her, looking like she wants to pray - as if there is a God to save her. She still averts her eyes and April stares at her coldly. She opens her mouth to speak, but April cuts her off. “Rhonda. You look like you’re about to fart. Are you? If you are, can you just step outside? The last time you came in here and dropped your pencil then let one rip when you bent over I had to keep the windows open for a week.”

“No, I...I’m fine, Ms. Ludgate. Gastrointestinally, at least. It’s just that the copier is-“

“Who do you think I am? Technical support? Get out of here, Rhonda.”

Rhonda sighs, and starts to back out the way she came in. Suddenly, she pauses and says, “My name isn’t Rhonda.”

“I don’t care, Rhonda.”

“My name is Jerry. Jerry Gergich. Well, technically it’s Garry, but-“

“Don’t be ridiculous, Rhonda. Your name is Rhonda,” April insists with a sinister smile. This is another one of the few things she derives pleasure from - tormenting Rhonda. She liked plotting murders and tormenting Rhonda. She also likes animals and cereal.

Rhonda (or Jerry or Garry...maybe Larry) frowns and looks like a sturgeon, but doesn’t leave. “Rhonda is a woman’s name, the least you could do is-“

“What’s your point, Rhonda?” April props her elbow on her desk and rests her chin in her hand to observe the frumpy creature in the doorway. She knows Rhonda is a man. He's a ridiculously clumsy, accident-prone, inept man. It's just hilarious to think of him as a woman, she doesn't know why. She continues to speak to her (him) with absolutely no emotion, “Is this why you came in here? To tell me you want to go by some nickname?”

Flustered, Rhonda (or Jerry) wrings his hands together. He appears to want to say something else, but he’s beginning to quake with fear and no words are coming out...again. His eyes dart back and forth as if looking for some clever remark.

“Alright, Rhonda. How about this? How about I call you by your preferred pronoun and we can discuss your gender identity at length at a later time?”

He takes everything she says so seriously. He believes every single facetious thing that rolls off of her tongue. “But I am a man, Ms. Ludgate. I’m married. To a woman. A wife. We have-“

April is about to cut him off to comment on the non-discrimination policy, but someone else cuts him off first. It is a disgruntled bellow, echoing from the copier room. “Rhonda! What did you do to the copier?!”

“Seriously, Rhonda,” April says sternly. “You really need to tell someone when you mess up the copier. You can’t just leave it and let the next person that needs it make the discovery. You need to take responsibility for your actions.”

Rhonda hangs his head and completely gives up at last. He held out for longer than usual, April notes. She dreads the day that even torturing him becomes a bore. It will happen eventually and she will have one less thing to bring joy into her life. She laughs a little because she really had forgotten his name. She wonders briefly if one day he’ll go postal and kill them all. Probably not. He's more likely to shoot himself in the foot and foil his own plan before even getting to the building.

She’s going to keep calling him Rhonda. She’s probably still going to keep thinking of him as a woman too. Everyone calls him Rhonda. It’s on the name plate on his desk and in the recording for his voicemail. Why did he have his panties in a bunch about it today? 

She looks absently out of one of the windows and notes that today is a very nice day. It’s such a waste that she’s stuck inside plotting murder. She works for the Parks and Recreation Department, so why the hell is she inside? Why doesn't she work from a park or something? Sometimes she tells people that she’s a vampire, but she really isn’t. Duh, because vampires aren't real. She won’t go up in flames if she steps out into the sun nor will she sparkle like some pansy unicorn. She actually quite likes being outside. At least she did once. She realizes that she actually forgot she liked being outside. This strikes her as a bit strange and sort of sad.  She isn’t sure what exactly 'sad' feels like and this also strikes an odd chord. 

What exactly is stopping her from just going outside? She could eat lunch outside at least. She could just tell all of her underlings where to find her with their stupid forms for her to sign off on. She's the boss. She makes the rules. Yeah, there are some people over her, but she wants to get fired. Would they fire her for going outside?

Crippling apathy overtakes her. Doing the same things day in and day out has rendered her into some sort of human-robot-monster. It slowly chipped away everything that ever brought her happiness and left her with these few bizarre things that summoned up feelings of amusement. It was also chipping away her other emotions as well. She hadn't had many to start with, but now she feels mostly boredom and more boredom and sometimes that is replaced by something that isn’t quite boredom. She is pretty sure she used to feel more feelings once. She had at least five. 

“Ugh,” she groans and lays her head down on her desk because thinking makes her exhausted. Killing Tom might give her bloodlust. She might not be able to stop killing once she killed Tom. She can’t decide if this is a bad thing or not. At the moment, she feels almost-amusement at the thought. Someone would need to change the welcome sign. 

_ Pawnee: Home of April Ludgate, The Most Prolific Serial Killer Of All Time _


	5. Ron Swanson Is A Man Of Principle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has many skills. His skillset is quite large.

Ron lives in a log cabin in the woods. He built the cabin himself with his own two hands with wood he cut from trees that he felled himself with an axe that he fashioned from a rock and sturdy stick. He didn’t get any building permits for his cabin and he doesn’t own the land. The land is owned by the Parks Department. He doesn’t believe humans should own the land, much less the government. He lives there on principle. Alone.

He thinks himself much happier than the average resident of Pawnee. He’s zen as shit. He somehow escaped unscathed from two insane ex-wives, both named Tammy. He didn’t murder either of them, but they may have murdered him had he not fled into the forest to freedom and safety. He is thankful he survived and thanks Mother Earth for providing him with a safe haven and the trees to build his cabin.

Ron secretly and tediously ran piping from the city all the way to his cabin and he doesn’t pay for his running water. No one has noticed yet and it’s been decades. He doesn’t believe people should have to pay for water. Like the land, the water belongs to no one. He keeps chickens and has an extensive vegetable garden that only consists of the manliest vegetables - potatoes, corn, potatoes, onions and more potatoes. He gets fresh meat weekly from Meat and Stuff with money that he makes busking on the street and by selling his delicately handcrafted woodworking masterpieces. He also eats at JJ’s Diner on a regular basis.

He's rich. No one knows this though. Most of the people of Pawnee think he lives under the bridge like some sort of troll. He has set up a fake home there, which he visits on occasion to maintain the illusion. He doesn’t believe in banks and he has money hidden all over Pawnee. No one has ever found a single one of his money caches. He figures that if someone does then they deserve to take it because it means he failed to hide it well enough.

As the sun goes down that evening, he sits next to his hearth and puts up his feet. He sits in a chair he made himself and puts his feet up on a stool he made himself. He made the hearth himself too, of course. He looks at his work and he is pleased. His foot stool is one of his best pieces, he thinks. He looks at his work everyday and is pleased. He's never half-assed a single piece.

He laughs and thinks about Tom as he starts to whiddle away at a block of wood. His current woodworking project is a set of wooden kitchen utensils. He doesn’t believe in making things that don’t serve a purpose. Everything he makes is functional and this gives him great satisfaction as well. He has never once made anything trivial. Pondering triviality makes him think about Tom again. Thinking again about Tom, he lets out another chuckle.

When Tom approached him concerned that April planned to kill him, Ron believed him. That’s why he began to uncontrollably laugh. It wasn't that he thought Tom was being ridiculous at all. He couldn’t believe it had taken Tom so long to realize that his life might very well be in danger. When Ron’s ex-wives were each plotting to kill him, he knew immediately. His senses were much more finely tuned than Tom’s though. Tom had lived a life with too much comfort in it and he was ill-equipped for pretty much everything. Being so tightly tied to civilization and technology as Tom was had made him weak. Tom would never survive in the forest. The forest would chew him up and spit him out instead of nourish him. Nature was not for the weak. Tom was barely surviving within the confines of Pawnee.

Perhaps Ron would teach Tom the skills he needed to be successful. Tom had perseverance and determination, which was a start...sort of. Would giving Tom lessons in survival count as a good deed? Did Ron even need to do any good deeds at this point?

The answer, he decided as he whiddled, was no - he did not need to perform any good deeds. He was responsible for himself and himself alone. He didn’t care much for Tom. He had loaned Tom some money once that had not been repaid. Ron didn’t believe in interest, but he did believe in being repaid when told he would be repaid. He would need to remind Tom of that and collect what he was owed before April killed him.

He didn’t think April would actually kill him. She might maim him, but the verdict was still out about her ability to actually kill. She’s just so lazy and lacks the passion required to commit such an act. Murder is a great deal of effort. He could be wrong about her though. She was sometimes hard to read and this was why he found her interesting. It was also why he had some semblance of respect for her.

The handle of the large wooden spoon he’s making is already beginning to take shape. He continues working and continues thinking about Tom and April for some time. There is absolutely no drama in his life at all and it makes him feel light and free. He often feels like skipping naked through the underbrush around his cabin. He observes the drama in the lives of other people regularly and it serves as a constant reminder as to why he hates it, but at the same time he finds it fascinating. People are always trying to drag him into their issues, asking for his help, his advice, his opinion. He acknowledges that he possesses a sage-like quality, among many other skills. One of his other skills is observation.

He often observes the lives of more than just April and Tom. He also watches Ann Perkins and he keeps up with the comings and goings of Leslie Knope and Andy Dwyer. He knows of Garry (or is it Jerry?) Gergich. He is also familiar with the Mayor of Pawnee, Donna. He isn’t sure why he’s taken interest in this odd group of people. Every so often he feels compelled to help them in one way or another, but he always settles on not doing so, just as he settled on not helping Tom.

Perhaps he has a subconscious desire to be a part of society again? Perhaps he subconsciously wants to form a connection with another human? He doesn’t believe in the subconscious. Or at least he denies it any power over his thoughts and actions. He begins to think about the connections that exist between the individuals he is most interested in and his knife slips just a bit. It nicks his thumb. He grunts and looks as the little bead of blood begins to form on the pad of his finger. He had become distracted by thoughts about these other people that he was no responsible for. Even thinking about other people is dangerous and his thumb is proof. Wiping the blood away onto his jeans, he decided firmly that there was nothing he would trade his solitary contentment for.

He would not get involved in the lives of these people. He would not go out of his way to harm them, but he would not help them either. Unless the help they needed was a desire for a set of wooden kitchen utensils - he could help them then and would help them willingly, for a reasonable monetary fee as compensation for his time and skill.


	6. Yes, Yes? Knope!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hills are alive with the sound of positive affirmations.

Leslie feels as if she just found her way out of a thick fog that she’s been unknowingly roaming through for the last several years. Her life since her resignation from the Parks Department has been full of muted emotions and muted sensations. She had to numb herself to everything in order to numb the hurt she felt when her life took a nosedive. She went through motions only and for so long that she wandered into this metaphorical fog-shrouded graveyard where all of the pieces of her former life were dead and buried. She got lost somehow, surrounded in decaying remnants. She clung to Andy because Andy was the only living remnant. She didn’t even realize she’d been lost until the moment she stumbled out of the eerie, melodramatic death metaphor. She had been very lost, indeed.

As she gathers her things from around Andy’s house, she asks herself, “Do I really even need everything?”

She wants to turn over a new leaf and finally get around to starting the bold, new chapter of her life after an unnecessarily long hiatus. If she takes all the junk she’s accumulated form her time with Andy it would serve only as reminders of this dark time - The Dark Ages of Leslie Knope.

“No,” she says aloud. “I certainly don't need everything. I only need the necessities. Power suits...toothbrush...”

She sorts through her possessions, meticulously prioritizing them. She decides to leave all of her cookware, dishes and silverware for Andy. It’s like a parting gift. She isn’t entirely sure how to go about breaking up with him. She isn’t sure how she ended up with him in the first place. The metaphorical fog was extremely disorientating.

“One thing at a time, Leslie,” she reminds herself and takes a deep breath as she stops to think. She puts her hands on her hips and surveys her surroundings, increasingly perplexed by how she lived in this mess. It's verging on unsanitary. This wasn't her at all.

She is endlessly thankful for Ann. Ann arrived in her life like a magical guiding light and led her from the fog. Albeit she had been in her life before when Andy was arrested, but she didn’t quite stick. Leslie blamed the disorienting fog. Clearly, that was the reason she overlooked Ann. Ann was like a flickering candle, a candle that was about to go out, but she was still giving off just enough light to save Leslie from herself.

Leslie is going to move her things into Ann’s place until she finds her own apartment. She's pretty stoked about this. It's going to be like a slumber party with wine every night. After work, Ann is coming over to help Leslie move. Leslie can’t very well move her things on her moped.

“One day, I’ll have a car again,” she again speaks aloud. "Leslie Knope, the dental hygienist, will have a car that can go the speed limit on the interstate."

She goes back to organizing and prioritizing her belongings, while speaking assorted positive affirmations throughout her progress. She plans on changing her track at the community college. Business is not for her. She wants to help people and make an impact. She wants to save the world one citizen of Pawnee at a time. She had forgotten this. Becoming a dental hygienist seems like a good choice. Oral health goes hand-in-hand with a person’s overall health. A healthy mouth means a healthy mind and body. Dental problems are common in Pawnee. This is because Pawnee is the seat of Sweetums, she believes. Whatever the cause, she is going to stomp out cavities and periodontal disease. Pawnee will be first in friendship and second or third in clean teeth.

With her new goal and armed with all of her good intentions, she feels good. She feels great, even. For the first time in a long time, she has hope.

Thunder rumbles outside in the distance. She glances toward the window and sees that the sky is dreary and gray. The past few days have been so pleasant and she was too down to appreciate it. It's about time for a good rain though. The impending storm would have brought Dark Ages Leslie down even farther. She would have decided not to go to class and she would have put her pajamas right back on and gotten back into bed. But now she saw the storm as a way to wash herself clean of her past and clean of Andy too.

Another rumble of thunder is closer. Then the downpour begins. It begins immediately as a downpour. There is no build-up and no period of drizzle. It pounds the roof and it is the sound of Leslie’s slate being wiped clean. That shit is getting power-washed. She looks at the clothes she's folded and looks at the rest needing to be folded. She stops and she clenches her fists at her sides. She takes another deep breath and she says to herself, “Leslie Knope is back, dammit.”

With determination, she walks to the front door and steps outside into the rain without hesitation. She wants to take her metaphor to the next level. She wants to bring it to life, to reality. She will be washed clean by this rain and when she is dry again she will be a new Leslie. A new Leslie similar to Pre-Dark Ages Leslie, but better. She will be Golden Age Leslie. She allows the rain to pelt her. It’s really coming down. It's cold, but the air outside is warm. The process is refreshing and rejuvenating.

She can barely see. She walks farther from the front door and extends her arms. She throws her head back and prepares herself for this baptism to enter in to her Golden Age. The rain began so suddenly and forcefully that the ground is slick. She nearly slips. She maintains her footing and she laughs loudly. Nothing can stop her. Nothing can stop Leslie Knope's Renaissance. She is ashamed that a little scandal nearly stopped her and she shouts, “Never again!”

She screams up at the sky loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but she doesn't care. “You cannot bring down Leslie Knope! You thought you did, but you have been sorely mistaken! Pawnee, you will take me back and love me again!”

Then she begins to twirl. She’s like Julie Andrews in _The Sound of Music_ only she’s in a track suit and in Pawnee in the rain, not the Alps. She swirls and skips then closes her eyes to shout another positive affirmation up toward the heavens, but before any words can be formed, she slips and falls into the pit.


	7. Ann Is Reminded That She Isn't A Nurse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But she is the tiniest vanilla scented candle?

“Ann, I’m so glad you’re here.” Leslie speaks slowly and sounds groggy. Her eyes are mere slits and Ann doesn’t even know how Leslie can see her at all. She’s heavily medicated and her leg is set in a full cast, now elevated in a sling over her hospital bed.

Ann is just standing confusedly next to her. Leslie’s doctor called her at work and then filled her in when she got to Pawnee General. She thought Leslie was nearly dead and needed legal help of some sort, but Leslie was not nearly dead at all. She had broken her leg though. She slipped and fell into the pit. Luckily, she had apparently been outside shouting at the sky, which prompted one of her neighbors to look out of their window to investigate the noise. Said neighbor happened to see her fall into the pit and called 911 - what a good Samaritan. Ann is confused because surely Leslie has other friends, better friends, than her. Or maybe not. Andy is in jail, so he isn’t of much use. Ann doubts he would have been terribly useful even if he weren’t in jail. Ann doesn’t think she’s useful either. She definitely wouldn't have been useful in any sort of legal capacity.

“Ann Perkins,” Leslie says, barely audible.

“Yeah, Leslie? Can I get you anything? Do you need something? Are you ok?” These questions all spill out because Ann doesn’t want to be useless. She left work to come here. Leslie called her and no one else, so she had to come.

“No...just...thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you would.”

Ann blinks and hesitates before saying, “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Maybe because she barely knows her. Maybe because it was the middle of a workday. There were actually several reasons she wouldn’t come. She adds, “It’s not like I actually had work to do...” Then she realizes that she _did_ have work to do - that she has an appointment with a client (she looks at her watch) right then. “Oh, dammit.”

“Ann...Ann Perkins...” Leslie whispers. She doesn’t seem to have heard her utterace. “My things...they are mostly packed...I am...so...so...so excited to move in with...you. You are a perfect angel, Ann Perkins.”

Cocking her head to the side, she is completely dumbfounded by the compliment and doesn’t know how to even begin to respond. “Uh, I’m excited too.” She looks at her watch again. “I need to make a phone call, is that ok? I’ll be right outside.”

“Of course. Of course...it’s ok, Ann. Telecommunicate...I'm not...going anywhere...” Leslie’s eyes are completely closed and she let’s out a faint, rattling snore.

Perfect timing, Ann thinks. Then her stomach starts to churn a little. She isn’t sure if it’s because of what Leslie said or because she forgot about her meeting. It may also be because she forgot her lunch at home that morning and didn’t want to go out for lunch, so all she ate was a garbage Sweetums candy bar from the vending machine. Maybe it’s all three of these factors. She doesn’t have time to sort it out because she needs to call her client. The poor guy is probably waiting for her at her office at that very moment. God, she’s the shittiest lawyer. She’s apparently the most awesome friend though...to a woman she only really spent time with in a non-work-related context the night before. When she thought about it that way, she realized Leslie might be completely insane. In a moment of unadulterated confusion she had told Leslie she could move in with her, which perhaps was not the most clever course of action. It’s too late to take it back now, and she couldn’t take it back now anyway because Leslie is laid up with a broken leg. Ann looks at the sleeping Leslie for a moment, her broken leg trussed up and a slight smile is on her face because of the pain medication and apparently because perfect angel Ann arrived to see her. Ann feels needed and she feels helpful...these are strangely foreign feelings. She honestly isn't sure if she likes them and thinks she may vomit.

Her stomach lurches, reminding her again of her meeting. She rummages in her purse for her phone as she walks out into the hall. She doesn’t want to wake up Leslie, although she isn’t sure she even can be woken up at the moment. She’s pretty sure Leslie is out cold. Her doctor said she needed to stay overnight for observation. She may have hit her head or sustained internal injuries - stuff like that. This sets back her move-in day, giving Ann another night to feel confused and nauseated.

Ann paces in a small circle just outside of Leslie’s room. She drops her cellphone onto the floor as she attempts to enter her passcode on the lock screen because her hands are shaking. It slides into the middle of the hall and an orderly passing by kicks it without even noticing. She soon finds herself awkwardly chasing it across the tile for several feet, all the way to the other side of the hall. She’s hunched over, not looking where she’s going and another passerby bumps into her. She snatches up her phone and immediately apologizes before even standing back up, “Ohmigod, I’m sorry.”

The nurse glowers at her and then moves on. She cowers and makes her way back across the hall. The woman in scrubs could have been her or she could have been that woman, if she weren’t Ann Perkins the defense attorney. She sticks close to the wall this time, does’t move, and holds her phone tightly. She can’t remember her client’s name. All she remembers is that they were supposed to meet and that he got a DUI. DUI cases all sort of blurred together. Drinking and driving (or biking) is a popular past time in Pawnee. She understands why - there's nothing else to do.

She feels like everyone is staring at her. She feels out of place whenever she goes anywhere outside of her apartment or her office. Every doctor and nurse that passes seems to look her over like she’s in the wrong place, like she shouldn’t be on her phone, or like she has something on her face. She wants to apologize to all of them. Flustered, she searches her calendar for the name of her client and thinks about how much she hates hospitals. She calls. He doesn’t answer. She leaves an apologetic voicemail. “I’m sorry,” she begins as another nurse gives her a questioning look. Then she feels stupid and realizes he probably won’t recognize her voice. She apologizes again, “I’m sorry. This is Ann Perkins...your lawyer. I’m sure you’re at my office and I’m not at my office. I’m sorry about that too. Or...um, that’s why I’m sorry. I had an emergency, so if you could call me back and reschedule? Again. Very sorry.”

She leaves her number and then sighs dejectedly. She’s mostly sorry that she’s a lawyer. Being at the hospital is serving largely to remind her of the terrible mistake she made in her career path. She doesn’t know if she even would have been a good nurse. Probably not. She realizes she didn’t actually hang up her phone and she sighs again before fumbling with it. She puts it back into her purse before she can drop it again.

“Ann,” Leslie’s voice comes from inside the sterile, little room.

Ann peeks her head in and says, “I thought you were asleep. Do you need anything?”

“I think I was asleep. Yes. Probably,” she sounds unsure and her words are slurring. ”I don't need anything...just your company. You are...you are the tiniest vanilla scented candle...in the graveyard fog...but you didn't...illuminate...that pit. It's ok though."

Leslie's metaphor makes absolutely no sense to her and she sits down in the chair next to the bed. It looks like it would be comfortable. It isn't.

"Thank you for coming, Ann,” Leslie tells her again and sighs contentedly.


	8. A Tangled Web Of Mystery And Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or maybe just melodrama.

Posters dot the town, calling the people of Pawnee to action in order to stop the nefarious villain that vandalized the mayor's office window and bush with an egg. The egg was identified as a run-of-the-mill chicken egg, jumbo size. It could have come from anywhere. No fingerprints were found on the egg and no traces of human DNA either. The perpetrator wore gloves when committing the treasonous act. The message scrawled on the egg shell with marker could not be deciphered even following attempted reassembly of the broken egg. The fool didn't use a permanent marker and his or her message of dissent is completely lost as a result.

There had been no follow-up attacks on Mayor Meagle nor her property. No one called in any tips or had any information. The people of Pawnee were not terribly observant of suspicious persons around town hall (or maybe they weren't observant of the wanted posters up around town). By the third day, Donna believes it was an isolated incident. Clearly, it had been some kid being stupid and nothing more. She'd egged some houses in her adolescence. She imagines an entire scenario in which some wiley youngster is dared to egg the mayor's office window. After all, she was loved by everyone. No one suspected that she harbored a mad lust for power. She reminds herself that only Lil' Sebastian is more loved by the people of Pawnee than her. Sometimes she thinks about having Lil' Sebastian assassinated then she would be the most loved of all. But if the assassination were ever connected to her, Pawnee would turn on her as they turned on Leslie Knope. Donna couldn't have that and she never spoke these terrible thoughts aloud to anyone.

Donna falls back into her routine and begins to forget about the egg. She dismisses the protective detail on her car and stops looking over her shoulder for assailants wielding egg cartons. At the end of the day, the egg is already a thing of the past. She makes her way out of city hall, amicably saying goodbye to the lingering government employees still milling around. As she leaves the building, she waves to people on the sidewalk. She smiles. They smile. Everyone is smiling. She smiles at her Benz. She imagines it smiling back. Everything is wonderful. Pawnee is wonderful. It is the perfect blend of rural and suburban and has small town appeal blended with rich history and Sweetums.

She unlocks the door of her Benz with her key fob then reaches for the handle, smiling all the while. Her life is perfect and the egg is the tiniest of blips on her radar.

The impact is sudden and jarring. A solid force strikes her directly between her shoulder blades with a dull thump. She is a solid wall of woman and the collision startles her, nothing more. She whirls around, her teeth clinched and hands balled into fists. She's ready to pummel someone right in the face with her bag. She's ready for swinging. Her eyes dart back and forth as she surveys her surroundings. There is no abnormal movement. There are two people nearing the end of the block. She had smiled and waved at those people and they're oblivious. There is another person getting into their car. He too had smiled and waved and is paying attention only to his immediate surroundings. All of the windows on the facade of the town hall building are closed and the bushes are still. Her eyes slowly drift down to the sidewalk where she spots the flying object that was thrown at her.

It's a potato.

It's a potato that's been carved into the shape of a penis.

If the potato had not been thrown at her, if it hadn't hit her, she may have thought it was funny. She probably would have thought it was hilarious. She might even still think it's hilarious, but that won't be for a few days. She pulls out her cellphone and documents the scene. She takes several photos of the potato, of where she was standing, and then a panoramic shot covering the entire area behind her once she considers the trajectory. She then picks up the potato and marches back inside.

The situation escalates quickly. Things like this don't happen very often in Pawnee. Police arrive and begin to canvas the area. She also calls Perd Hapley and secures on a spot on _Ya Heard?_ where she intends to address the menace that is terrorizing her idyllic little town with produce. 

The potato-thrower had excellent aim to hit her so solidly right between her shoulders. Had the potato hit her car instead of her it would have surely left a dent. If that happened she wouldn't be playing around anymore. This would be a full-scale war and she would have resorted to vigilante justice. A thought occurs to her: What if they were aiming for her car and missed? What if they were actually extremely awful at throwing dick-shaped potatoes? 

She informs the sheriff of this thought. "I believe the culprit is either really good at throwing or really bad at throwing."

He nods enthusiastically and he writes down everything she says on his yellow notepad. 

City hall bustles with activity. Donna's secretary hasn't left yet and Donna is grateful. The mousy woman follows her around fanning her with a large woven fan and carrying her soda as she speaks to the various law enforcement on the scene. Her secretary will be getting a nice bonus this month for sure. Donna isn't an evil mayor at all. She is fair and as benevolent as she can be while harboring her deep, dark motives - that is why she is so perplexed and upset by these attacks on her person. 

Reporters arrive and a crowd begins to form outside. She has promised Perd and exclusive so she makes no comment to the press. No one reads the newspaper or actually watches the local news anymore, but everyone watches  _Ya Heard?_ Perd is also another one of the most adored Pawnee residents. He's not high enough on the list for Donna to consider him a threat though. Together they will put a stop to the mysterious rabble-rouser, quelling any malcontents before they can undermine her rule.


	9. Ann And Leslie Watch TV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ya Heard? With Perd!

Taking a tumble into a large hole during a thunderstorm on the first day of the rest of your life is a surefire way to really put a damper on the rest of your life. Leslie's broken leg demands that she stay off of her feet. After a week she gets a new cast and is permitted to hobble about slightly more. She can't go to class. She can't get a new job. She can only sit around Ann's apartment and watch television. She reminds herself that it's now Ann's apartment  _and_ her apartment. It's strange not living at Andy's incredibly messy house. It's almost as strange as when she moved into Andy's house after being a strong, independent woman for so long. 

Ann is so nice. She makes sure she has drinks and snacks and is constantly asking her if she needs anything. Being taken care of is really bizarre and Leslie doesn't like it. At least she doesn't like it at first. It's sort of nice.  Living with Andy made her a lot less of a busy-body so it isn't actually that difficult for her to stay on the couch all day. Still, when Ann goes to work she's super-bored. She figures it's because Ann is super entertaining and the juxtaposition of Ann versus no-Ann is very extreme. She can only make so many PowerPoint presentations for fun and she's already run out of scrapbook pages for her latest scrapbook. She's even done all of her homework for all of her classes already.

When she hears Ann's keys jingling outside of the door, she perks up. This must be how dogs that are left home alone all day feel, she thinks. Dogs probably also have to pee, but she does not. She exclaims, "Ann!" as soon as the door opens.

Ann looks a bit baffled when she comes in. Leslie has noticed that her face often goes sort of slack and then her brow furrows before she responds to anything Leslie says to her. She's clutching a large bag of what smells like Chinese takeout. She looks almost surprised to see Leslie on her couch, as if Leslie were going to get up and go somewhere with her bum leg. After a few seconds, the woman seems to regain her senses and she says, "I got Chinese and there's something going on at city hall. The entire Pawnee Police Department was there by the looks of it."

"All four of them?" Leslie asks with a laugh.

"Yeah. There was even some police tape up, but I didn't see any bodies or anything."

"Maybe we should watch the news tonight," Leslie suggests, apprehensively.

"If you're up for it, yeah."

Leslie didn't care for watching any sort of news. She most certainly didn't watch the local news. Being informed about the goings on in Pawnee hit a sensitive nerve, but she was turning over a new leaf and trying to recapture all of the best parts of Pre-Dark Ages Leslie. She had these plans to be an informed dental hygienist. She would start being informed again tonight! Because something was going on at city hall. City hall had been one of her favorite buildings, if not her favorite building, in all of Pawnee. 

The local news sheds very little light on the event. There is just a lot of confused footage of the crime scene, which only looks like a crime scene thanks to a bit of police tape and a police officer. What occurred is unknown. But during a commercial break shortly after the segment...

" _Tonight on a special edition of_ Ya Heard? _LIVE with Perd Hapley_ ," says the familiar voice of Pawnee native, Perd Hapley. " _Dramatic news from the hometown of yours truly, Perd - Pawnee, Indiana. Mayor Donna Meagle is mysteriously assaulted by an unknown assailant and a mystery begins to unfold. Find out more tonight on_ Ya Heard? With Perd!"

Leslie and Ann exchange a confused glance and Ann's brow is furrowed even more than usual. Leslie says, "Ann, you have to stop making that face."

"What face?" she questions and makes the face.

"The one you're making now," Leslie shakes a chopstick at her. "You're going to get premature forehead wrinkles, which will really distract from your otherwise very beautiful face."

Ann's eyes glaze over for a second, her brow remains tightly knit then she seems to re-enter her own body. She quickly covers her forehead with her hand. "Are you serious?"

"I'm serious. You're always making that same confused face. You need to make a different confused face without wrinkling your forehead. Let me demonstrate..." Leslie clears her throat, shifts a bit in her place on the coach and then raises her eyebrows and widens her eyes. Her face relaxes and she says, "That is a surprised and confused face. I think it would be appropriate for you. I mean, you can still, make your default face, but you really need to do it in moderation."

Ann's hand remains on her forehead. She says nothing, turns back toward the television and forks at her lo mien with her free hand.

"Have you ever met the mayor?" Leslie then asks her. "I used to work with her at the Parks Department. She was the office manager if you can believe it."

"I met her once. She thanked me for keeping criminals off of the streets of Pawnee..." she sighs. "I'm apparently more effective than some of the prosecutors." She finally removed her hand from her face and she adds, "So what do you think this assault business is? Who would attack Mayor Meagle?"

Leslie shrugs a bit, "I guess we're going to have to watch  _Ya Heard?_ to find out."

"Speaking of the Parks Department - I know it's a sore subject - but can they maybe do something about the pit? I mean, it's obviously a hazard."

She thinks for a moment before saying hopelessly, "It's on Andy's property, so probably not."

"Oh," responds Ann. "Well, nevermind. How does Andy even have property? Where did he get that house?"

"No idea."

"You didn't ask?"

Leslie shakes her head. 

"Did you two, like, not talk?"

Leslie shrugs. 

Their conversation is interrupted by the television. The volume is at a normal level, but Perd's volume is not normal and his voice is blaring, " _I'm Perd Hapley and this is_ Ya Heard? With Perd!" Both women turn back to the TV. " _Tonight I have a very special guest with me - my close personal friend and the Mayor of Pawnee - Donna Meagle! She's here today as the Mayor of Pawnee!_ "

Seeing Donna on Ann's giant television makes Leslie feel an assortment of different emotions in rapid succession. She knew Donna Meagle, the office manager. Donna worked for her and had absolutely no aspirations. She liked Donna, not because she had no aspirations, but because she liked everyone she worked with. The first feeling impacting Leslie is nostalgia. It evolves into a dull sadness, which is followed unexpectedly by jealousy. Donna stole Leslie's life. She doesn't understand or know how it happened and she's confused next. Then she's angry as she sees Donna shaking Perd's hand. She should be shaking Perd Hapley's hand, not the office manager. Mayor, she reminds herself.

" _It's nice to be here, Perd_ ," she says. She smiles widely. She doesn't look like she's been attacked.

Leslie wants to assault her, to punch that smile right off of her stupid face. She's supposed to be an office manager, not mayor of Pawnee. Leslie is supposed to be mayor of Pawnee or at least on the City Council. The anger turns into hopelessness and as soon as the hopelessness hits Leslie quickly plummets into apathy much like how she plummeted into the pit. She feels nothing because it's preferable to all of these other feelings. She doesn't like thinking about what could have been and how it never will be now. She knows that this is exactly how she got stuck in the funk with Andy, but she can't seem to stop herself from losing her will to function. She is reminded of her scandal and her her spiral into Dark Ages Leslie and she feels like Dark Ages Leslie again. She wants to sleep. Feeling so many feelings at once and then feeling nothing is exhausting. 

She completely misses the first part of the segment, but she's snapped back to reality by Perd's voice.

" _Did you say a potato that had been carved into the same of male genitalia?!_ "

" _Yes, Perd,_ " Donna nods. " _Someone threw a_ [bleep] _-shaped potato at me._ "

Ann snickers and an image of what must be the potato appears on the screen, but it's covered completely by a black censor bar. All that's visible is the sidewalk. The potato may not even be in the picture. Maybe it's just a picture of the sidewalk with a black bar pasted on top of it. Donna always did have a flare for the dramatic.

Perd says, " _Wow! Straight from the mouth of Mayor Donna Meagle - a_ [bleep] _-shaped potato!"_

Ann's laughter increases and then she can't seem to stop. She has to put down her food to avoid spilling it all over her couch. Is she laughing at the dick-shaped potato or at the censoring of the dick-shaped potato? Leslie is somewhat amused. She would be more amused if she hadn't reverted into Dark Ages Leslie.

" _You heard it here first,_ " Perd says to the camera. " _Donna Meagle, my close and personal friend and mayor of Pawnee, has been a repeated victim of these mysterious attacks by a menace throwing produce. He or she is obviously a man or woman trying to communicate a message. What that message is, we can only wonder because the message is not yet clear._ "

Leslie watches Ann and sees her making the face. "Ahem," she says and points to her forehead when Ann looks over. She reminds her, "Wrinkles."

She touches her forehead and stops laughing long enough to ask, "Did I hear all of that right? Someone threw and egg at her office window and then someone hit her with a potato shaped like a..." She laughs, "Like a..." She tries once more and only manages to chuckle, "Like..."

Leslie laughs a little as well, but with markedly less vigor, "What do you think it all means?"

Struggling to compose herself, she says, "I don't know. Do you want some wine? I need a drink."

"Sure."

"Can I get you anything else?" she asks as she gets up. "I'm sorry that I'm apparently a twelve-year-old boy."

"No need to apologize, Ann Perkins," Leslie sighs and sinks further into the couch, clutching her food and feeling very much like she was back at Andy's. The very tiny, flickering candle in the graveyard fog seems to have flickered right out. Donna Meagle is a gust of cold wind.


	10. April And Tom Also Watch TV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ya Heard? With Perd! from another perspective.

April and Tom don't sit together on the couch. They sit about as far away from each other as they can while still being in the same room. Tom keeps eyeing April warily. Whenever she looks at him he quickly looks away and pretends to be doing something on his phone. It's so completely obvious that it amuses April, so she keeps doing it. It seems to stress him out a great deal, which she finds very rewarding.

"Did you hear about what happened at city hall today?" she asks him, speaking monotonously.

"No?"

She says nothing else and looks back at the television. The local news is on. She expects them to mention it.

"So what happened?" Tom asks her, his voice wavering, frightened.

"I don't know. I was asking you."

"You work there..."

"So?" She had taken it upon herself to leave work fifteen minutes early because she felt like it and she missed all of the apparent excitement. Exciting things only seem to happen when she isn't there. Of course. She feels Tom staring at her and she slowly turns her head. He looks down. She smiles and looks back at the TV. "Hey, there it is," she points as she sees city hall and the police tape. "Maybe someone was murdered," she says, bemused.

No one was murdered. Well, maybe someone was murdered. No one seems to know what happened. The reporter talked to some cop and all he said was, "We are not able to make a statement right now."

Weird. She's not sure if it's interesting or not. But it is weird. Weird is sometimes synonymous with interesting. Not always though.

Tom is fidgeting. He keeps looking down at his phone and then up at the TV. His eyes dart over toward April. He pulls his legs up underneath him in his recliner and he looks remarkably small. He's so on edge. If April were to make any sudden movements he might just die of a coronary. That would be a convenient and easy way to kill him. It would be a funny way to kill him, but a bit anticlimactic, in her opinion.

" _Tonight on a special edition of_ Ya Heard? _LIVE with Perd Hapley_ ," Perd shouts from the TV. " _Dramatic news from the hometown of yours truly, Perd - Pawnee, Indiana. Mayor Donna Meagle is mysteriously assaulted by an unknown assailant and a mystery begins to unfold. Find out more tonight on_ Ya Heard? With Perd _!_ "

"Fucking Perd," April mumbles and gets up. She needs another glass of water. "I guess now I have to watch fucking Perd to find out what happened at the place I work."

April doesn't care for Perd. She doesn't care for journalists at all. Perd is the worst though.

"Someone attacked the mayor? Why would anyone attack the mayor?" Tom says, curiously.

She looks back over her shoulder and sees him peaking at her over the back of his chair. She shrugs, "How should I know?"

"I thought everyone liked the mayor. Even you like the mayor."

"I do like the mayor..." her voice trails off. She dispenses water from the refrigerator and chew on her bottom lip where Tom can't see. Truth is, April is scared of the mayor. Mayor Meagle is probably the only person in the world that April is afraid of. Mayor Meagle might be the only _thing_ that April is afraid of, not just person. But, like, everything.

"Do you think she's ok? Do you think she's hurt?"

"Tom, I don't know," she groans and goes to sit back down in her own recliner across the room. "How badly could she be hurt if Perd is handling the story, right?"

"I like Perd."

"Of course you do, Tom."

They watch the rest of the news quietly. Tom still periodically looks over at April, she catches him, and he panics.  _Ya Heard?_ comes on and April hopes they cover the city hall drama early in the program. She can't bear to listen to Perd Hapley's stupid voice for very long.

" _Tonight I have a very special guest with me - my close personal friend and the Mayor of Pawnee - Donna Meagle! She's here today as the Mayor of Pawnee!_ "

Donna looks fine. No worse for wear. She doesn't even look traumatized.

" _It's nice to be here, Perd_ ," she greets him, shakes his hand and takes a seat in the chair next to him on his set.

" _What in the world is going on, Mayor Meagle? You were attacked today by a mysterious attacker?_ "

" _I was, Perd. It was actually the second attack. The first attack was what I believed to be an isolated act of vandalism, but it appears that both incidents were related. They both involved using produce as projectiles._ " She speaks dramatically, but in good spirits about the events. Her tone is almost joking, but April suspects that the perpetrator will be harshly punished if and when they are caught.

Donna goes on to talk to Perd about an egg hitting her office window - an egg with a message that was lost in the process. This makes April laugh and she wonders where she was when that happened. She might have been napping under her desk that morning. The mayor has no idea why anyone would egg her office and April doesn't know either. It's a shame the message on the egg was smudged. April is glad the woman's car wasn't egged because then she would be on the warpath for sure. She might just burn down all of Pawnee to start the town over. She's just testing the waters now. She's trying to get the people of Pawnee to act as her enforcers and weed out the vandal for her. April understands her strategy. It's a good one. Get the minions to do all of the work and make them feel good about it.

" _Then this afternoon, I was minding my own business, leaving work, going to my car..._ " she pauses and Perd looks at her, his eyes huge and face stern. April suspects this is how many of the people of Pawnee are also staring at their TV screens at the moment as well. She looks over at Tom and is at least correct about his stupid expression. She finally goes on, " _Someone hit me right between my shoulder blade with a potato carved into the shape of a man's you-know-what!"_

 _"A man's you-know...oh!"_ says Perd. His eyes look like they might just explode right out of his face this time.

" _That's right, Perd."_ Donna nods, austerely.

" _Did you say a potato that had been carved into the same of male genitalia?!_ "

" _Yes, Perd,_ " Donna nods again. " _Someone threw a [bleep]-shaped potato at me._ "

April looks over at Tom again and his mouth his fallen open. He's gaping and staring at the TV like a dumb zombie.

Perd says, " _Wow! Straight from the mouth of Mayor Donna Meagle - a [bleep]-shaped potato!_ "

The two on the TV talk a bit more about the potato and the egg and the possible message associated with each. Donna then does exactly what April predicted and prompts the people of Pawnee to come forward with information to put a stop to the menace.

Perd turns and looks straight at the camera, speaking directly to the viewers, " _You heard it here first: Donna Meagle, my close and personal friend and mayor of Pawnee, has been a repeated victim of these mysterious attacks by a menace throwing produce. He or she is obviously a man or woman trying to communicate a message. What that message is, we can only wonder because the message is not yet clear._ "

"What could it mean?" Tom utters dreamily.

"I don't know about the egg, but the potato..." April pauses for dramatic effect to make Tom gape in her direction. She laughs and says, "Someone thinks Donna is a dictator. Get it? Dick-potato...dick-tater...dictator. Duh."


	11. Ron And April Are Set Up On A Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just kidding. Do you see Ron/April in the tags? No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this hasn't gotten very "M" rated yet. I'm writing this for a last minute Nanowrimo, so I'm trying to milk it for words. I promise it will get dirty and vulgar eventually.

As the sun sets, Ron walks into JJ's Diner. He nods to the hostess and makes his way to what is established as his booth. No one sits there except him. He always sits there alone. Tonight though, there is someone sitting there. The person is in a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over their head. Their back is to Ron. He slides into the side of the booth opposite the person and says, "April, what are you doing?"

"You told me to be stealth. I'm being stealth." She's also wearing large sunglasses.

"I didn't say that."

"Oh," she slides the hood down and takes off the sunglasses, sitting them aside. "Why am I here?"

Ron is confused, "You're the one that wanted to meet me here..."

She cocks her head to one side and leans back. She crosses her arms and says, "No."

Ron eyes her suspiciously. He isn't sure if she's joking. She doesn't appear to be joking and she also looks reasonably confused. They measure each other up in silence for several minutes before Ron finally says, "I was told to meet you here."

"I was told to meet you here," she echoes.

He crosses his arms. Something weird is going on. He's extremely suspicious. He sort of wants to get up and leave, but one does not simply go into JJ's and leave without eating something. He waves a waitress over and orders a steak. April also orders a steak. They sit in silence for several more minutes and both continue to size each other up. Ron can tell that April is trying to determine if he's lying. They are both very suspicious people with a general distrust for everyone else. These are more reasons that Ron is sort of fond of her. He isn't fond enough to become personally invested in her life by any means. 

Why would someone do this to him. She hasn't broken eye contact with him nor he with her since they placed their orders. The waitress came and brought glasses of water for them both and they didn't break eye contact. Ron nodded to her, but did not look away from April.

April speaks again first, but does not avert her eyes. She crosses her arms and mimics Ron's position then she says, "Someone's screwing with us, Ron."

"I agree. I don't like games."

"I do."

Ron grunts, "Who told you I wanted to meet you here?"

"There was a note on my desk after lunch. I have it if you want to see it."

Ron nods to her. She still doesn't break eye contact with him as she reaches down into the pocket of her sweatshirt. She slides the slip of paper across the table. Ron thinks it might be a trick to make him look down. He cannot look down first. He places one hand on the piece of paper and pulls it closer to him, but he doesn't look at it.

"Who told you I wanted to meet you here?" April echoes him again.

"I'm not sure," he confesses. "I was playing my saxophone near the post office. Someone dropped a piece of paper into my case around lunchtime. I have it if you want to see it."

She nods slightly and he reaches into his own pocket without looking away from her. He slides the folded piece of paper across the table in the same manner that she did.

April then says, "Dude, Ron. How about we look down at these pieces of paper at the same time?"

"I will do that."

"You are a man of your word."

"I am. If a man doesn't have his word then he has nothing."

"What about a woman?"

"April, if you don't look down-"

"God, Ron. I will. On the count of three we can be done with this. I'd like to look at my food when I eat it."

Ron doesn't need to look at his food while he eats it. He is competent enough to control his hands without looking at them. He agrees to her terms though for sake of not sitting in JJ's all night. He also wants to get to the bottom of this. Someone set them up. He doesn't like that in the slightest. 

"One...two...three," April says and Ron looks down at the piece of paper. It's unremarkable, plain, white paper. Not very sturdy. It's identical to the paper the note to him was written on. He unfolds the sheet and immediately notes that the handwriting is identical as well. It certainly isn't his handwriting. The note reads:

_Meet Ron at his booth in JJ's Diner at sundown._

This is extremely similar to the note he received, which read:

_Meet April at your booth in JJ's Diner at sundown._

_"_ Is someone playing some sort of joke on us?" April asks him, looking at his note.

"Who knows that I have a booth here?" Ron questions, whispering.

"Everyone, Ron," April answers and rolls her eyes. "Every single person in Pawnee."

He mumbles an agreement then asks, "Do you recognize the handwriting?"

"No. No one writes anything by hand anymore. If it were typed up, I'm sure I could recognize the font, but what good would that do us?"

He glares at her, "Don't get snarky, Ludgate."

"I'm going to put my sunglasses back on and go look around. I'll see if there's anyone watching us. Maybe we're on a prank show." She does this before Ron can stop her. He balls his hands into fists and rest them on the table on either side of the note.

Why would someone do this to them? He can think of no logical reason. Not many people are logical so he begins trying to think of illogical reasons when his food arrives. April returns a moment later and shrugs.

She suggests, "Maybe there's something we're supposed to see here. Is anything out of place?"

"Nothing is out of place," he gruffly responds.

"Well, as I was making my lap around the place, I saw two guys hurrying out-"

"No one hurries out of JJ's."

"Exactly," she agrees. "I didn't recognize them. One was a tall guy, one was a little shorter. Brown hair. Suits."

Ron grimaces, "Suits."

"Any ideas? Do you think these two random, strange dudes in town wanted to set us up on a date and then fled the scene upon the arrival of our meals?"

Ron does not validate her theory with so much as the slightest response. He continues eating instead. Her theory is very illogical, but it's too illogical. He thinks that perhaps the hurried men in suits are unrelated to their notes. But maybe not? Again, no one hurries out of JJ's. But what would two newcomer's to Pawnee want with them? Everyone in Pawnee knows he has a booth in JJ's, but how would two strangers know that? Perhaps the suited men had been watching him, had been watching them, for some time now. But why? Why? He hopes they weren't sent by Tammy 1 or Tammy 2. Especially not Tammy 2. Oh, dear God, not Tammy 2. Thinking about her is making his delicious JJ's steak taste like death, so he quickly pushes her from his mind.

The waitress returns to check on them and asks them the customary waitress questions and refills their water. Then she says, "Some guys left this for you, said to give it to you after they left."

She drops a folded piece of white paper on their table and then walks away.

The two of them look at the piece of paper. It's the same paper as the other two notes. Ron knows the handwriting will be the same and he suspects that April is thinking the exact same thing. 


	12. Attorney Ann Drinks More Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an important theme.

Ann's life was always confusing, but it was always confusing in the same way, so she's gotten used to it. She could live with it and she did live with it. She had a routine. But now her routine didn't exist. Now her spare bedroom where she kept canned goods was occupied by another human, by Leslie Knope. Leslie loves breakfast food and despite the doctor telling her stay off of her feet, she insists upon making waffles in the morning. Ann doesn't eat before work because she feels nauseous thinking about going to work. Leslie makes her eat waffles and says, "Ann, you're thin. You're a beautiful, perfect cupcake with pink frosting, but you're thin. You need to eat this waffle."

Leslie does this thing where she compliments her in really odd ways that leave her feeling both good and bad about herself all at the same time. Leslie also demands a great deal of attention nearly constantly. She has a broken leg though and how do you deny attention to someone with a broken leg? She fell in a pit for God's sake while celebrating her new life. And Ann really does want to help. She believes in following doctor's instructions, and Leslie does...for the most part - at least when Ann's home. Leslie woke up at some freakish hour to make waffles and she swears that this is the only time she's been on her feet for more than a minute.

Ann, not wanting to hurt Leslie's feelings, eats a waffle and regrets it. She regrets pretty much everything she does everyday though. One thing she does not regret is acting as Leslie's nurse-maid. It makes her feel useful and needed, which are foreign feelings. Plus, she's good at it. How hard is it though to fetch things for a woman laid up on a couch? Leslie doesn't even need all that much - a glass of water, a soda, a glass of wine, a sandwich, the TV remote, her computer cord, markers, construction paper, safety scissors, a three-hole punch, a candy bar, her phone...not that much!

Leslie apparently cooks. She promises to cook more than waffles as soon as she's permitted to be on her feet and slightly more mobile. Ann doesn't cook. Ann isn't sure if she can cook or not, but she doesn't try. She eats a lot of takeout, microwave meals, cereal, ice cream, and wine. She often stays at work late trying not to be a screw up and then she doesn't have time to prepare much.

Leslie also insists that once she's fully-mobile that they'll go to the Snakehole Lounge. Thursday nights are Ladies' Night. Ann doesn't go out. She doesn't think she's been to a club since college. She's usually too exhausted after work and it's easier to pour a glass or three of wine in the comfort of her own home. She doesn't have to get dressed up. She can just wear sweats. 

She agrees to all of these ideas of Leslie's and hopes she doesn't regret them like she regrets eating the waffle. She swears she can feel it forming an indigestible lump in her stomach as she attempts to find Andy's file among all of the junk on her desk. Maybe it's not the waffle at all that's ripping her insides into pieces. Maybe it's the fact that she has to try to stop Andy from going to prison. She couldn't even get him bail, so she has little hope for keeping him out of prison. Maybe the DA will have some sort of plea deal whipped up for him. She really hopes so. Pleas make things infinitely easier. They make it so she can have a celebratory glass of wine instead of drown-her-miserable-sorrows-in-a-glass-of-wine glass of wine. She very seldom has the former type of glass of wine. Often she has several of the latter.

Her stomach lets out a noisy grumble and she looks at her watch. She mutters, "Shit. Shit. Shit."

She's late. Of course she's late. She grabs every file from her desk and shoves them all into her briefcase. One of them is surely Andy's. She's not sure she even needs it. She knows his case inside and out. She has a tendency to completely forget everything though once she arrives in court. She's perplexed as to how she even passed the bar. She thinks there must have been some mistake. Her test got mixed up with the test of some deserving wannabe lawyer, who probably ended up going to nursing school after they thought they failed the bar. Sometimes she gets lucky, but the luck is never actually in her favor somehow. 

The rest of the day remained in the metaphorical toilet that was Ann's life, but the Fates decided not to flush. She didn't keep Andy out of prison, but he took a plea deal and only got three years. He'd be out sooner on good behavior, she figured. But what the hell did she know? She barely understood the legal system. At the end of the day, her car wouldn't start. She ended up walking, which would have been fine, except it started raining. 

"This could be a lot worse," she keeps repeating to herself. She isn't entirely sure what type of glass of wine she'd be having. She figures it will depend on Leslie's reaction to Andy's case. Leslie had called her several times throughout the day, and with great guilt Ann ignored each of her calls. She was busy and this wasn't even a lie. It occurred to her several times that Leslie might need something. What if she'd fallen down and gotten somehow stuck on her back like a turtle or something? Surely she was just calling to find out about Andy though.

When she unlocks the door and hears Leslie's enthusiastic exclamation of, "Ann!" she knows she isn't mad and that she also isn't stuck on her back like a turtle. Instead, she's sitting in what she has established as her place on the couch.

Immediately, the guilt causes a confession to overflow right out of Ann's face, "Leslie, I've been ignoring your calls all day because Andy is going to prison for three years and I'm the worst damn lawyer in the world."

"Ann Perkins, you sound like you need a glass of wine. I'd get up and get it for you, but I'm not supposed to be on my feet, so why don't you get us both glasses?" Leslie isn't upset at all.

Ann nods. She begins peeling off her damp suit jacket and vanishes into her bedroom to change into dry clothes. She says to herself, "Celebratory glass of wine it is."

When she comes back out, Leslie looks at her with a raised eyebrow, "Why are you wet, by the way?"

"Rain," Ann says. "My car wouldn't start, so I walked. It started raining."

"You might have worse luck than me, Ann."

"At least I didn't fall into a big hole?" She grabs a random bottle of wine from her wine rack and begins to open it.

"Who would take care of us if we both had broken legs?"

Ann shrugs. She didn't have any friends. Leslie is her only friend. She pours two glasses of wine then plops down on the couch next to her only friend. She brings the entire bottle with her and sits on the coffee table in front of them. It's Friday night, so she can drink until she doesn't feel feelings anymore. It's been a long week. It's been a long month...long year...long several years. This is more wine that tastes like misery.

Leslie elbows her lightly then says, "Ann, thank you for trying. You try more in a single day than I've tried in years."

"Thanks," she mumbles. She really does appreciate it.

"Can you tell Andy I want to break up?" she then asks out of nowhere.

"Huh?" she turns to Leslie and is careful not to crease her forehead in her confusion.

"I don't know how else to do it. Will you do it for me? Please, Ann?"

"I, uh, I guess?" She isn't sure at all, but she can't say no. She can never say no to anyone. It's something she's been meaning to work on, but hasn't.

Leslie smiles widely, "Thank you. You're the best friend anyone could ever have. You're an honorable, imperfect piece of scrap metal."

Ann tries to smile back, but instead she knits her brow. She can't stop it. She has no control over her face. Leslie wags a finger at her. She quickly covers her forehead with the hand not holding her wine and she says, "You're my best friend too, Leslie?"

She says it with too much inflection, but Leslie doesn't seem to notice. The blonde woman turns back to the TV and Ann downs her entire glass of wine. 

 


	13. A Forest Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nature!

Following their strange, but oddly satisfying dinner a few days before, Ron took a napkin and drew a map on it.

"April, I want you to memorize this map. After you have memorized this map, I need you to destroy it. Burn it and then put the ashes into the sewer. In three days time, I will meet you at the location marked on the map at exactly 5pm. If you are not there at 5pm, I will leave and you will be lost in the woods forever," he said to her in all seriousness.

She laughed. She tried not to laugh so it came out as a snort. This makes Ron glare at her over their plates. His mustache twitches. The next day she still does as he says. She memorizes the map then she sets it on fire in the bathroom sink. She washes the ashes down the drain and crosses her fingers that they don't clog the pipes somehow. 

"All drains lead to the sewer," she mumbles and makes sure the charred black mess is gone.

Ron's request is weird, but not as weird as the note that the waitress dropped off on their table from the two mysterious men in suits. The note is on cheap white paper and the handwriting is small and neat. It's remarkably uniform and angular. For her to write like that it would be painstaking. That's weird in and of itself, but the note gets weirder because of the message scrawled neatly on it. 

_Come to the graveyard behind Pawnee Lutheran at midnight in three days if you want to save the world._

"We will meet these suited men," Ron says to her after he reads it. "But we will be armed."

"This is the most fun I've had ever, in my entire life. This is like a scavenger hunt, but better, and now there are going to be guns, which makes it even more better...better-er..." she wiggles her eyebrows up and down at Ron. He seems unamused.

"My curiosity is admittedly piqued, but I have no interest in saving the world," he tells her and then he begins to draw the map on the napkin.

Before they departed company and left JJ's Diner, Ron gives her several more assignments and makes her repeat all of them back to him including the bit about the map, "Wear good shoes and layers. Do not bring your cellphone. Do not tell Tom anything. Do not tell anyone anything."

"Should I bring wards to keep away ghosts, demons and vampires?" she asks him, grinning mischievously.

He looks at her blankly and she knows the answer is no. That's good because she doesn't have any wards anyway. She's not sure what a ward is. Well, she supposes that garlic would work for the vampires. She also has no interest in saving the world and thought of herself more as a super villain than any sort of world-saving hero type. Like Ron, she is curious. 

The next day she memorizes the map. It included several landmarks and a dotted line leading from one to the next in a sequential order that would take her deep into the woods. She's never been camping her life and has only been into the woods on accident, but she's pretty sure she's got it under control. Ron's man is good. The map will lead her to a clearing and this is where he's going to arm her with guns and they're going to prepare to meet the men in the graveyard. A graveyard is definitely the coolest place for a secret meeting, especially at midnight. Everything about this is perfection. She can't wait.

Ron disappeared into the shadows after their dinner at JJ's and no one sees him again for the next several days. The next several days creep by even slower than usual for April. She spends her time at work napping under her desk in an attempt to make the time pass more rapidly. Maybe she'll have a bed built in under there, George Costanza style.

On the third day, Tom is unfortunately at home. April puts on what she considers to be good shoes (she's not entirely sure what that means) and puts on a long-sleeved shirt over her t-shirt, then a hoodie over that, and a jacket over top of her hoodie. On her way out of the door, nosy-ass Tom asks, "Where are you going?"

"Your mom's," she says and exits without looking back. She doesn't have her phone so she has no idea what time it is because who the hell wears a watch besides Ron? No one. She goes to the first location marked on the map, which is The Glitter Factory. She smells the scent of breakfast food wafting out and walks around to the back of the building. A short way in the distance are trees. It's a lot of trees, which makes it a forest.

She shoves her hands into her pockets and holds her head high so that she looks like she knows what she's doing. She has found that that's the key to a lot of things - merely looking at if you know what you're doing. Confidence! As she approaches the trees, she scans them for the second landmark, which is a large tree shaped like the letter K. She spots the knobby tree and enters the forest at that point, but first she checks to make sure she isn't followed. There's no sign of anyone. From there, she turns slightly to the left and walks straight. She walks for a while and keeps her eyes peeled for a large rock. She hasn't seen a single rock, but she's pretty sure she could find her way out of the woods at this point. She can still sort of hear the sounds of Pawnee in the distance. Or at least she thinks she can. They might just be in her head. 

When she sees the rock she feels a bit of relief. It has some moss on it and it's not quite as big as she thought it would be. She hopes she's making good time. She really doesn't want to miss her the rendezvous. She's really, really excited. She's not just excited about guns, she's excited about this entire thing - bizarre notes, hanging out with the Pawnee Hobo, midnight graveyard meetings, men in suits.

At the rock, she turns slightly to the right and carries on in a straight line. The undergrowth is thicker now. The next landmark is another tree - this one shaped like an F. She spots it quite easily. The tree is a huge one. It must be old. When she reaches it, she is to walk straight in the direction of the lower arm of the F. She feels as if she's being watched and she looks around, pausing, but being careful not to lose the correct direction. Being lost in the woods forever doesn't seem very appealing. She should have packed a protein bar. She doesn't see anyone, but the forest is sort of noisy. There are birds squawking and squirrels stomping around. She continues until coming upon the third and final tree. It's a curved pine and carved into the bark and eye-level is an arrow that she is to follow to the clearing. 

"I've been watching you," Ron says as soon as she pushes her way through some shrubs and into a space barren of trees. His arms are crossed and he looks like a beefy man statue. He's wearing flannel and jeans. There is a black duffle bag on the ground next to him. "You passed the test."

Ron must've been who was watching her. She wonders how he did it without her seeing him. She wants to learn all of his tricks. She pretty much wants to be him. She asks, "What's next?"

"We prepare for every possible scenario, Ludgate."


	14. There Is Only One Scenario

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Ron is a simple man.

Ron returns to his cabin to meditate for the next three days following the suspiciously arranged dinner with April Ludgate. Meditating, in Ron's case, is working with wood in silence and thinking deeply about the situation at hand. He has several issues with "saving the world." First and foremost, it goes against his most core value, which is being responsible only for himself and not getting involved in the affairs of anyone else. Second, he doesn't think the world is worth saving. Third, he doesn't think it can be saved, much less saved by the likes of himself and April, who is quite possibly a personification of evil. The two men orchestrating these shenanigans are likely insane. Yet, he is quite curious to learn their rationale and origins. He doesn't actually care about them. His interests lie in how they are affecting him. 

He draws April a map and provides her with instructions. He wants to test her. He needs to see if she's competent. Even a solitary creature like himself occasionally needs an ally, but he can't select just any ally. He's had his beliefs about April for some time now, but it's time to put her to the test. Personification of evil or no, they seem to share a few ideals. If she passes his test, she will gain his trust once and for all. They will then be allies. This does not mean he will become invested in her personal life. It just means they will work together to accomplish shared goals on rare occasions.

From the time she enters the woods, he observes her from a great distance using binoculars. As she approaches the final leg of her journey, he picks up the bag he packed earlier and makes his way toward the clearing he designated as their meeting spot. He crosses his arms and plants his feet firmly, creating a solid foundation. He is a human wall.

"I've been watching you," he tells her once she flails her way through some bushes and into view. "You passed the test."

"What's next?" she asks.

"We prepare for every possible scenario, Ludgate." A smile spreads across his face. It's mostly obscured by his great mustache, but it's there. 

"How do we prepare? Let's do this shit," she says as enthusiastically as is possible coming from her.

He bends down and unzips his bag. He reaches in and pulls out a bottle of golden bourbon and two shot glasses. "This fine beverage here aged for 207 years. I only drink it in emergencies. It will put hair on your chest and give you god-powers. We must both imbibe this holy juice before we begin preparing."

April is expressionless, but paying close attention as he removes the cork and pours two shots. He holds one out to her for her to take. She has no snarky remarks. He tucks the bottle safely back into the bag and they clink their shot glasses together then consume the heavenly nectar. It is unbelievably smooth with earthy undertones. He watches her closely and soon finds that they are locked into another contest of wills and eye contact, just as they had been at JJ's.

"God, Ron," says April with a slight shutter. "I already have to shave my chest every other day. I don't need more chest hair."

He lets out a slight chuckle and waits for the effects of his exceptionally aged bourbon to completely debilitate her or not.

She then asks, "Should we really be drinking before handling firearms?"

With a grin, he tells her informatively, "We aren't drinking. We are granting ourselves god-powers. Plus, we won't be handling firearms for several more hours."

"What else is in the bag then?" She makes an indication in its general direction and looks at him doubtfully. Her cheeks are flushed, but she's still standing.

"Protective padding for that 207-year-old bottle of magic," he says then chortles. He feels the warmth from the bourbon spreading from his stomach and everything is good. For the time being, the midnight meeting in the graveyard doesn't matter. Ron isn't drunk. Ron does not get drunk, especially not from a single shot of bourbon. Even if it's the most delicious and antique bourbon in possession of any living mortal. Instead of getting drunk, Ron just gets more manly. 

April also laughs and she averts her eyes, conceding to him. "I'm going to sit down," she says. "I'm going to sit right here in nature. Unless sitting causes me to fail your test then I will, in fact, remain standing."

"A fine place to sit," he says and continues to observe her. She sits down with slow and deliberate movements then looks up at Ron with what looks like admiration, but it might just be intoxication.

For a time there are only the sounds of nature around them. April then scratches absently at her chest and asks, "Is that stuff, like, a million proof? I'm pretty sure I can feel my new chest hair poking through all of my layers."

Ron laughs at her again and answers with a simple, "Yes."

After a few minutes, April gets to her feet and he takes her to his cabin. The bourbon is actually to ensure that she doesn't exactly know how to find his cabin again. When they depart his cabin, it will be dark. Depending upon how the events at the graveyard unfold, Ron may or may not allow April to return to his haven. April takes a seat in a rocking chair on his porch and makes her own observation. She says to him, "Hey, you have chickens and potatoes."

She's looking at him rather suspiciously. He doesn't know why and doesn't know the significance of potatoes and chickens. He says nothing in response.

April then asks, "What is the next scenario we prepare for? Wait...what was the first one? Oh, no, are you going to murder me like you did your wives?" Her voice is completely monotone. She's not afraid, and Ron suspects she's attempting to be sarcastic, but that the sarcasm has become dulled by the bourbon.

"There's only one scenario that can take place tonight," he begins.

April quickly interjects, "We're going to shoot the men, aren't we? Then we're going to bury their bodies in the woods...or feed them to your chickens."

"No," he corrects her. "We're going to hear them out for sake of our curiosity and then we're going to see them on their way."

"What about the guns?" She glowers at him.

"I will have a gun, but you will not. Did you think I would just give you a gun? First, I have to teach you proper gun safety, which I unfortunately cannot do while you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk. I am extremely tipsy. I'll be fine before the midnight graveyard meeting." She squints, "Was that part of the test too? I would have eaten something before I came if I knew there would be drinking."

He lets out a rather boisterous laugh and sits down in the other chair on his porch. He isn't sure why he has two chairs when he is only one man. He's glad he has two though. He is sort of enjoying the company. He has a brisket in his oven that he's been preparing all day and he also finds himself somewhat glad that she properly followed his map and made it there. He asks her, "What was that you said about my chickens and potatoes, Ludgate?"


	15. Donna Is On High Alert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously.

Donna stalks the halls of her mansion like a ghost. She bought the Turnbill Mansion. She also invested in Sweetums and the Snakehole Lounge. She's the richest woman in Pawnee, but this won't keep her safe from produce being used as projectiles in her general direction. A police officer is stationed at the end of her long driveway, and she has checked five times to make sure her car is safe in her garage. She's heading downstairs to check on that again now.

"Quit psyching yourself out, Donna Meagle," she says, her voice wavering. "You've got police posted up outside, so nobody can throw any food at you."

She's been thinking her mansion is actually haunted by real ghosts. She hears the curtains rustling and a sound like feet shuffling on the carpet at night all the time. This isn't just because she's hella paranoid either - that shit started before people began throwing things at her at city hall. It's way worse now though. The ghosts are feeding off of her emotions, she thinks.

"Police can't protect you from ghosts though," she mutters to herself. "Need a priest for that or something."

She hears something that sounds like footsteps going down the stairs. It takes her a moment to realize it's her going down the stairs. She breathes a heavy sigh of relief.

She's really proud of how well she kept it together when she was on Perd and how well she's been keeping it together at work. Coming home to her big, old house is making her crazy though. First she was real mad that someone would throw anything at her. Maybe not mad. Maybe it was more a sort of annoyance. She doesn't know anymore and concludes that there's no point in her dwelling on any past emotions when right now she's just feeling scared as hell because there are ghosts in her house, she's home all alone, and there might be people outside waiting to hit her with food that has been fashioned into vulgar shapes.

She tries really hard to laugh about the dick-shaped potato, but she still can't seem to find it funny. If only it had happened to someone else, she'd be having a good chuckle right now along with all the ghosts in her haunted mansion. She's not laughing right now and neither are the ghosts. She tip-toes toward the door leading out into her five-car garage where her Benz has plenty of elbow room (if cars had elbows). She flips on the light and peers out into the big space.

All is still and quiet.

The only sound she hears is...

Rustling curtains behind her!

She turns around slowly and realizes that it's just her own pants rubbing together. There are no curtains behind her. She lets out another sigh of relief. Then she decides to do an entire lap around the first floor to make sure all of the doors and windows are closed and locked.

"Damn, Donna," she says to herself with fervor. "You really gotta chill out right now."

She usually goes out on Friday and Saturday nights, but not this weekend. She couldn't even bring herself to go to the Snakehole where she is a regular, in addition to an investor. Maybe she should've called some people over. She could have thrown a party - but what if the assailant was among the guests? She needed to feel safe in her own home - but she doesn't feel safe in her home and she's all alone.

Donna thinks for a moment that maybe her previous life-goal of finding a husband would have been better right now. After checking all of the windows and doors for the sixth time that night, she starts back up the staircase. She wonders how taking over the world and finding a husband had become mutually exclusive. They weren't, she realized. At least they shouldn't be. She needed a man for times like these, or at least a maid or a live-in housekeeper or something.

"No, no," she says to herself, "I need a personal chef. I'll get on that shit first thing tomorrow."

She needs to get some rest. Monday is always her busiest day of pretending to be busy.

She hears a sound like someone behind her on the stairs. She stops and the sound stops. She holds her breath and turns around slowly. It's nothing. It's her damn pants dragging on the stairs. She needs to get a hold of herself. The Turnbill Mansion is an impenetrable fortress. There's no evidence that the thrower (or throwers) even know where she lives. They can't be residents of Pawnee. All of the residents of Pawnee love her. The only Pawnee resident they love more is Li'l Sebastian, she reminds herself for the millionth time that day. 

An insane thought pops into her head as she enters her massive bedroom that houses her huge bed. She had a mirror installed above it - seedy Las Vegas hotel style. 

Anyway, the crazy thought - what if that damn mini-horse is somehow responsible for the attacks?

"No, Donna. Horses don't have thumbs," she said immediately. She closes the door behind her, checks her closet and checks her massive bathroom for any sign of intruders. "Note to self," she then says, "Look into radical Li'l Sebastian enthusiasts. I'm sure some of them have thumbs."

She feels like she's going insane. She doesn't like the feeling. She hasn't slept well in days and she always sleeps well. She can't remember the last time in her life that she didn't get a good night's sleep. She can't stand that someone somewhere dislikes her enough to throw things at her. It's too soon in her political career to have enemies. At first it made her feel special, flattered even, but now it's just making her crazy. This person needed to be eliminated and their stupid ideas quashed before they could spread like a disease. She's not sure what these ideas are exactly, but they can be good ones if they involve using washable markers on eggs and carving potatoes into the shapes of penises, right?


	16. The Graveyard Night Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the mysterious men in suits.

Ben Wyatt thinks of himself as a nice man from Partridge, Minnesota. Partridge, Minnesota will make no claim to him though. He is haunted by a mishap called Ice Town, and the events following his bankruptcy of the town have shaped his entire life. He very nearly became a government auditor, but then he met a man named Chris Traeger. Chris believes himself to be nigh-immortal and is unbelievably charismatic. Ben is swept up in the magical whirlwind that is Chris. They are now wanted in several states, mainly for acts of vandalism. They are on a mission to put a stop to government corruption, starting from the bottom up. How effective they've been is up for some debate. 

They made their way to Pawnee several weeks before. Chris got wind that the mayor of the small town could be a dangerous individual and it warranted investigation. After a week of careful surveillance, Chris decided that Donna Meagle was dangerous indeed. Ben obediently followed Chris' lead because Chris saved him from a mundane life of being an auditor. 

Now, the two are sitting in the graveyard. Chris likes graveyards, he says they remind him of all of his narrow escapes from death. He is perched on top of a tombstone from the 1700s and Ben is worried he's going to break it, but he doesn't say anything. Chris looks regal. They are both dressed in suits and ties and Ben watches Chris closely. Ben doesn't have strong feelings about graveyards either way, but he does care about history and he doesn't want Christ to break a several-hundred year old tombstone. But he still doesn't say anything.

Chris looks like a gargoyle in the eerie shadows, a gargoyle with 2.8% body fat and the whitest, most perfect smile. His elbows are resting on his knees and he is scanning the horizon, looking regal and classy. His shirt is perfectly pressed and his pants are creased. His bright purple tie is fluttering gently in the wind. The scene could be a painting, a real work of art. And Ben is in love with Chris.

Ben has his hands in his pockets and absently kicks at a clump of grass higher than all of the rest. They've entered what Chris calls "The Dissemination Phase" of the reorganization of Pawnee. It's the third phase. The first phase is obviously The Research Phase and the second phase is The Warning Phase. The current phase is the one where they plant truth-seeds in the minds of the individuals in the town most likely to agree with their beliefs that the government is evil and must be overturned. Ben can't help but remind himself that they have yet to actually overturn any governments, but this doesn't matter. Eventually they will. He believes fully in Chris and his mission. Or maybe just believes in Chris. Sometimes he isn't sure anymore, but he never says this to Chris.

"Do you think they'll come?" Ben asks. They've made it to this phase in a few other small towns, but no one ever shows up.

"Of course they will, Ben Wyatt," Chris says with a wide smile and he clasps his hands together. The sound makes Ben jump and it echoes in the quiet of the solemn spot. Chris smiles even wider, "Calm down, Ben Wyatt, there's no such thing as ghosts."

"I think I hear someone, Chris," he says and moves closer to him.

Chris sits up straight and motions for silence. They both hold extremely still, listening. The sound of light footsteps can be heard approaching. Two sets. They're coming from the forest behind the church. A moment later the two figures come into view. The man, Ron, is carrying a shotgun. Ben thinks they may have made a horrible mistake this time, but Chris doesn't hesitate. He leaps down from the grave marker and marches toward them with his hand extended for shaking.

"Thank you for coming, I'm Chris Traeger," he says, jovially.

Both Ron and April only stare at his hand and keep their arms at their sides. 

"I'm, uh, Ben...Ben Wyatt," Ben tells them with a slight, awkward wave. He hangs back, cautiously.

Chris is still smiling. He clears his throat and gets right to the point. He begins by telling them about the potato.

"The dict-tator," April interjects.

"That exactly right, April Ludgate!" he exclaims. He goes on to explain his belief that Donna Meagle will continue to rise, gaining more and more power, until ultimately she destroys the world.

"Wait a minute, what about the egg?" April interrupts him again, not seeming to care at all about anything he just said to them.

"The egg? Oh, oh. That. That was Ben Wyatt's contribution. We don't talk about the egg because it was poorly executed."

April and Ron look toward Ben. He waves again then puts his hands into his pants pockets.

Ron raises his gun and says, "Hands out of your pockets, boy."

He quickly removes them and raises them to about shoulder-height. Chris doesn't react at all and continues smiling.

"But what did the egg mean?" April asks.

"We don't talk about the egg," Chris says.

Ron then shifts the barrel of the gun in his direction. Ben reacts purely on instinct and in a split-second.

"No! Chris!" he screams and dives on top of the other man as if to protect him from a bullet that wasn't even fired. They crash to the soft ground, on top of someone's grave, but this will not be where they die. Ben has saved Chris' life, although it didn't need to be saved. He only realizes this after the fact.

April and Ron are looking down at them. Ron looks particularly perplexed and says, "Young man, you would really risk your life for this other man?"

Ben nods as Chris helps them both to sit up. They remain sitting on the ground. Chris looks at Ben and grabs his shoulders, "Ben Wyatt, a bullet wound would serve only to add some additional punctuation to my life. You do not need to endanger yourself for me."

He hangs his head, feeling foolish. 

"Although there is no man that I would risk my life for, I respect this quality you've displayed here tonight," Ron says, propping his gun against another tombstone and then putting out his hand to help Ben up.

"Seriously?" April looks taken aback by what is apparently a change of heart from Ron.

"Well done, Ron Swanson!" Chris exclaims and Ben gets to his feet. Chris then wipes dirt from his knees and stands up as well, without any assistance.  He then straightens his tie.

April crosses her arms and looks from Ben to Chris and back. "I'm still not clear about how we're supposed to save the world. Are you two some sort of well-dressed anarchists? Libertarian extremists? Or what?"

"Excellent question, April Ludgate," Chris says. "We want to remove corrupt individuals from seats of power and do away with pointless government positions that-"

Chris is interrupted by Ron having an inexplicably high-pitched giggling fit. 


	17. How's Andy Doing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prison isn't like on TV. Or is it?

It's always been easy for Andy to make friends. This becomes slightly less true when he arrives at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. He's confused about how and why the Indiana State Prison is in a city named after another state. Why even is there a city in Indiana named after Michigan? Why is Michigan so special? He poses this question to the first prison guard he meets.

"No talking, inmate," the man says without even looking at him.

Andy frowns. Who will answer his question? He would ask Leslie, but Leslie isn't here. Leslie hasn't come to visit him once. Attorney Ann said that she broke her leg because she fell into that big hole he made in the yard. He meant to fill it in, but he sort of thought he'd get around to putting in a pool. But then he forgot about that idea. He feels pretty bad about it. He hopes Leslie isn't too mad at him. If Leslie is mad at him, who will take care of him when he gets out of prison? Ann said he's be out in no time for good behavior, so he's going to try not to do anything bad. 

He's in the minimum security wing and has a cellmate named Mark Bredanawicz. It takes a solid ten minutes before Andy can get Mark's last name right. Mark won't tell him what he's in for and tells him that it's not polite to ask. He also tells Andy not to call him Mr. Brendanawicz because that's weird. Andy decides to call him Mr. Mark instead.[  
](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Brendanawicz)

"You seem like a nice kid," Mark says. He's the second most manly looking man that Andy has ever met after Ron Swanson. He's manly in a different way than Ron too, Andy decides.

"I think so," Andy tells him.

Mark has a stern face and his eyebrows look like caterpillars glued to his forehead. He looks Andy over, clinching his jaw, and then asks, "Hey, you want a prison tattoo? I specialize in building layouts and maps. I can do a map of your hometown if you want."

"Building layouts and maps?" These don't seem like cool prison tattoos. They don't seem like cool tattoos at all. Andy wants to get "FREE FOOD" tattooed across his knuckles instead.

Mark's caterpillar eyebrows jam up close together, "You got a problem with it?"

He shakes his head and closes his mouth tightly. Although Mark speaks calmly, his eyes are cold and dead. Andy doesn't want to piss him off, even if his prison tattoos are the lamest in the prison. He has to live with this guy in a seven-foot cell and he's not totally dumb. He quickly picks up on the prison schedule - there's a time for everything. It's sort of nice. He always knows what's going to be happening. There's breakfast, lunch, dinner, outside time, phone time, TV time, bed time. It's sort of like being back in elementary school, except the kids are all grown men, and he doesn't feel like he's learning much. He decides he's going to get really ripped and that he's going to read some books to impress Leslie.

Ann visits him on Monday to make sure he settled in ok. Ann is really nice. Andy feels like she's his friend in addition to his lawyer. He goes to the visiting room at visiting time and she's sitting at a little table with her briefcase in her lap. Andy sits down across from her and says, "Hey, do you want a snack? They have chips and stuff." He hitches his thumb over his shoulder toward the vending machines. "They also have that blue Pepsi stuff that I thought they stopped making like ten years ago, but apparently prisons still get it, which is way cool. It turns your mouth blue."

"No. Thank you though," she says and looks confused. She always looks confused. "How are you doing? Has anyone beaten you up?"

He shakes his head, "No. My cellmate, Mark, said he would give me a prison tattoo."

"Don't get a prison tattoo," she tells him.

"Would Leslie not like it?"

"About Leslie..." She clears her throat then speaks very quickly so that her words are pretty much one word, "Leslie wants to break up with you."

"Aw, man. Because she fell in the pit?"

"Yes - er, well...no. She fell in the pit after she packed up her things to move in with me."

Andy blinks and thinks about this. It doesn't make sense. Ann looks confused, like it doesn't make sense to her either. "My girlfriend, Leslie Knope, left me...for you?"

"Yes...um, no. No. Not like that."

He leaned forward across the table and said quietly, "That's hot."

"No, Andy."

"You sure you don't want a snack?" he asks her again. He wants a snack.

Ann says again, "No, thank you though. If you want a snack, you can go get a snack. Are you allowed?"

"Yeah, I'm allowed. I already got my prison bucks."

"Prison...bucks?" he hears her mumble confusedly, but he's already up from the table and heading for the vending machines. He feels like he should be a little more sad about Leslie, but it's hard for him to feel sad with blue Pepsi. It's way better than all of Sweetums' stupid sodas. None of them turn his mouth this same shade of blue. He also gets a bag of Cheetos. They go great with the blue Pepsi. He's been watching cooking shows and he knows this is called a "flavor profile." It's probably his favorite flavor profile.

When he sits back down he says, "Will you take good care of Leslie?"

"What?"

"Leslie. With her broken leg."

"Uh, yeah. I have been taking care of her. She isn't allowed to be up very much."

"She makes great waffles. They're almost as good as the waffles at JJ's." He sees Ann cringe when he mentions waffles and he doesn't know why waffles would ever make anyone cringe. He then asks, "Hey, can you bring me some JJ's next time? When are you coming to see me again?"

"I don't know if I can do that..."

"Bring me JJ's or visit me again?"

"JJ's."

"Oh. That's ok. When are you coming to visit again?"

"I don't know. Next week?" She pulls a business card out of her jacket pocket and hands it to him. "You can also call me if you need me. You have phone privileges, right?"

"Of course I do, Ann!" he laughs. She doesn't know anything about prison, which is weird considering how many people he's met that said Ann Perkins put them here.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like Andy. I don't know why I've done this to him. I don't know why I've done any of these terrible things to any of these fictional characters.


	18. Leslie Knope Is Single

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But cannot mingle on account of her broken leg.

"Ann!" Leslie exclaims when her lovely roommate comes in after another hard day at work. Leslie had another hard day of not working. She was starting to get really bored. Her boredom is reaching a point never before obtained. She didn't do much when she lived with Andy, but she didn't like not being able to do anything. If she wanted to waste an entire day doing nothing, she wanted it to be voluntary and not because her leg was busted. She's been watching videos only about being a dental hygienist. Mouths are really gross. She's beginning to think this is also may not the correct career path for her.

"Hey, Leslie," Ann says. "I got you waffles from JJ's."

This is music to her ears and it is the most wonderful news she's gotten in a long time. She can't even form words, not even any sort of compliment where she compares Ann to something odd. All she can do is smell the sweet, sweet waffles. She hasn't had waffles from JJ's Diner in such a long time. JJ's is a common meeting place for various members of Pawnee's government, so Leslie can't go there unless she goes in disguise. Ann is just so thoughtful.

"Oh, and you're single," Ann adds and drops the Styrofoam container down on her lap then deposits what is presumably her own dinner down on the other side of the coffee table.

This is also wonderful news. It is so much wonderful news. Leslie thinks she may simply die of glee. She's free of Andy and she has waffles to celebrate. She can feel their warmth on her hands through the container. "Ann, you are a stunning jungle predator with perfect skin."

"You're welcome. I'll get you a fork in a minute." Ann then disappears into her bedroom to change into sweatpants like she does everyday after work. When she doesn't have to go to work, she just stays in her sweatpants. After she changes, she'll go to the kitchen and get some wine. Ann is very predictable, Leslie has noticed. She thinks Ann might also have a drinking problem. It isn't like Andy's meth problem, Ann is clearly a functional addict. Ann also makes no attempt to hide her drinking as Andy apparently did with his drugs.

As predicted, Ann comes out in gray sweat pants and a t-shirt and goes into the kitchen. She pours two glasses of wine and then comes to sit down with utensils. Leslie opens the takeaway box and nearly weeps when she sees the syrup-covered clouds of of delicious, golden magic. 

"Andy never once got me waffles from JJ's...not once. All of those years together. Ann, I think I might be in love with you."

This causes Ann to completely freeze. Her glass of wine is halfway to her mouth and her own box of food is only partially opened. Her fork clatters to the floor. For a moment, Leslie thinks time may have stopped. The TV is still going. it surely also would have been affected by such a phenomenon. Only Ann is frozen. 

"Ann?" Leslie questions. "Ann? Are you ok?"

"Totally fine," she says and picks up exactly where she left off. Opening her box to reveal some sort of not-very-delicious-looking wrap and some mac 'n cheese. She takes a noisy gulp of wine then bends down for her fork. She inspects it, deems it to be clean and stabs it forcefully into the macaroni. She acts as if nothing strange just happened. She acts as if she wasn't completely still for no reason for at least eight seconds.

Leslie thinks Ann might have something wrong in her brain. Some sort of misfiring. That's the only explanation for her to just shut down and then pick back up again without even noticing the lost time. She wonders if it happens often to Ann while she's at work. Poor Ann. Maybe Leslie will become a neurosurgeon in order to find a cure for her best friend's mysterious brain disease. There's time for that later. Right now, it is waffle time. There's nothing in the world quite like the fluffy perfection of JJ's waffles. 

"So how'd Andy take it?" she asks Ann between bites.

"Fine. He seems to be having fun in prison...oddly enough. They have blue Pepsi and he's been playing basketball."

"That's good. Andy's not a bad person, you know."

"I know," Ann says. 

"We were supposed to be a one-night stand. I wasn't supposed to end up with him for years on end."

"These things happen." Ann is eating a bit robotically and staring straight ahead at the TV. 

Leslie's waffles are getting cold, but it's hard to enjoy them when Ann has turned into a cyborg. "Is something wrong, Ann?"

"Everything's fine," she then polishes off her entire glass of wine then gets up for more. 

She shovels a large bite of waffle into her mouth and twists around to watch Ann. The expression on her face is not her default confused one with furrowed brow. It's also not her second-most common expression the completely blank, glazed over one. Instead, Ann seems to be processing. Ann looks up after she refills her glass then squints at Leslie, but says nothing. Leslie chews slowly and looks at Ann with her own confused expression - wide eyes and eyebrows raised. 

"Ann?" Leslie questions again.

"Do you need anything while I'm up?" Ann fires back with a question of her own. Her voice is startlingly monotone.

"No..." Leslie starts to say then realizes she does need something, "Actually, can you bring me a napkin?"

"Sure," says Ann, drinking almost her entire new glass of wine while she gets a napkin. She ends up topping it off before returning to the couch.

Leslie is perplexed. Something is the matter with Ann. She decides to finish her waffles before they get cold though.


	19. What Ann Has Is A Feelings Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The treatment is wine.

Ann thinks she might be getting a stomach ulcer. Her job is horrendously stressful and her wine-consumption likely doesn't help. Leslie moving into her spare bedroom has also caused varying degrees of stomach discontent on top of her pre-existing, work-related ailments. Morning waffles, her endless stream of bizarre pseudo-compliments and then jokingly saying she's in love with her are all too much. It causes some sort of emotional overload. Whenever Ann feels any sort of emotion it seems to manifest gastro-intestinally. This is both inconvenient and gross because it happens with both positive and negative emotions. Anxiety is a gnawing feeling with loud grumbles. Sadness is is a dull ache. Regret is an unpleasant churning. Confusion is like she's been punched in the gut. All of her feelings translate somehow to her stomach and then she smothers all of these feelings with wine to the best of her ability.

She's forgotten what it's like to have someone be nice to her. Hell, she's forgotten how to interact with another human outside of a work-related context. She's not even entirely sure how to interact with people at work. Maybe Leslie's weird compliments and waffle-making are normal. Maybe this is what normal people do, what roommates do, what friends do. Having someone compliment her makes her feel confused and good at once. So it ends up being like a punch in her gut combined with a fluttering feeling - this is rather awful, to say the least. 

Andy's misunderstanding of his and Leslie's breakup and misattributing it to Leslie leaving him for Ann had lingered with her all day. She found herself absently pondering hypotheticals in her office afterward. She felt silly. All of her daydreams were silly. She isn't a lesbian. Certainly the fluttering feeling Leslie gives her is a friendship-feeling not an in-love-feeling. She likes to be needed and Leslie happens to need her since she has a broken leg. Feeling needed isn't being in love with someone and she's pretty sure her emotions are all just jumbled up. But what if they're not?

Ann Perkins has not been on a date since her first year out of law school. She hasn't even managed an ill-planned disastrous hook-up with a stranger from a bar in several years. Probably because she doesn't go to bars because she would rather wear sweatpants then stumble to her bed without having to change clothes. Men don't like when women wear sweatpants. Men are stupid. Sweatpants are the most comfortable damn pants in the world. She admittedly thinks they look cool too. At least on her. Over the years she's found herself to be quite adept at taking care of business in her pants...in her sweatpants...when necessary. Men seem a little obsolete and not worth the complication. She sure does hate being alone though and at the same time she's also very uncomfortable with Leslie in her apartment.

Even if Ann were having more than friendship-feelings (hypothetically) this does not mean that Leslie is experiencing any similar sort of feelings, she reminds herself. Leslie was in a long-term relationship with a dude until that very day. This makes her hypothetical ponderings seem even more silly. It also makes them quite a bit more nauseating because they begin conjuring up additional feelings of anxiety and sadness. Anxiety because having a lesbian crush on a straight woman has got to be the worst thing ever and sadness because she is going to die alone. All of these different feelings and general confusion combine to make her feel pathetic and she lays her face down on a stack of paperwork. 

She begins reprimanding herself, "Stupid Ann. Stupid, stupid Ann."

There's a knock on her door and the visitor doesn't wait for her to respond and opens the door immediately after the third knock in the rapid succession. It jars her desk before she can lift her head, giving her a good jolt and making her ears ring. She sits up and the top sheet of paper is stuck to her face. It flutters to the floor and she looks at the man standing in her office doorway with one hand still on the knob. As her vision comes into focus, she doesn't recognize him.

"Sorry, wrong office," he says and exits as quickly as he entered.

Her name is on the damn door. Do people not read anymore? Is it just too much effort? Her life is too much effort. She wants to put her head back down, but she fears someone else will come plowing in - that would be just her luck. She rolls her chair back as far as it will go and looks under her desk. She thinks about crawling under there. It looks like a cozy cave, but she realizes the impact from her door hitting the desk would still be awful. It might even be worse if she were in the tiny little nook. She settles for slouching in her chair and staring at the papers on her desk. She rubs her hand on her cheek and she bets she has ink on her face from the stupid paper.

At the end of the day, Ann decides that she's just desperate for any sort of affection and pushes the ridiculous hypothetical thoughts completely from her mind. She decides she'll do something nice and friendly for Leslie. Because that's what they are - friends. She remembers Leslie mentioning waffles from JJ'S Diner, so she's going to get some JJ's to-go as a friendly surprise. Ann acknowledges that her taking care of Leslie while her leg is broken is also nice and friendly, but it's different. It's because Leslie's leg is broken. JJ's waffles will be a symbol of friendship. She has only friendship-feelings and generic caretaker feelings on account of Leslie's leg.

But then Leslie jokingly says, "Ann, I think I might be in love with you."

Ann recognizes it at a joke, another one of Leslie's strange compliments - that's clearly how she means it. It's just like calling her a sparkling jellyfish mouth or something else that makes little to no sense. But as soon as the words are uttered, Ann is punched in the gut by confusion. No, it's more of a stab. She is knifed in her intestines by some other feeling. All of the hypotheticals from earlier move to the forefront of her thoughts. To stop herself from hurling on her own carpet she chugs down her wine after several seconds of attempting to process whatever feeling it is she's feeling.

Everything is terrible. She needs more wine. She also needs to act normal. She gets more wine, but fails miserably at acting normal.

Whether she's in love with Leslie Knope because she's in love with Leslie Knope or just because Leslie makes her feel special and needed, she doesn't know. It doesn't matter. The end result is the same. Ann is in love with Leslie Knope and she is certain that her life just got at least a million times crappier as a result.


	20. To Kill A Tom Haverford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #MurderNapkins

As she curls up under her desk for a mid-morning nap, April has a lot on her mind. She isn't even sure if she'll be able to get to sleep. She laughs because of course she'll be able to get to sleep. She can always get to sleep. She didn't get home the night before until around 2am after the meeting with the two weird gay dudes. They weren't weird because they were gay, they were weird because they were weird. The only normal thing about them was that they were gay, in fact. The taller one, Chris, always referred to everyone by their first and last names and he smiled way too much. April is pretty sure he's a sociopath. The shorter one, Ben, was really subservient to Chris. Too subservient and almost like a humanoid extension of Chris himself. No one should ever be that in love with another human. It couldn't possibly be healthy. 

Chris and Ben wanted her and Ron to help them mischievously torment Donna until she resigned as mayor. Ron is not terribly mischievous and not terribly fond of doing things he deems trivial. He quickly deems all of the duo's acts to be rather trivial. April though, on the other hand, is endlessly amused by the prospect of frivolous pranks and gaslighting. She's not very amused by the prospect of doing anything like this to Donna though. To Rhonda, sure. Ron fully supports the anarchy the two men seem to stand for, but he clearly stated that their methodology is all wrong. He wouldn't tell them any correct methodologies because Ron doesn't believe in actually doing anything about anything. He just wants to stay in his secret cabin of solitude.

April thinks hard about the cabin and she can't quite remember it. She definitely sat for a long time in a very nice rocking chair, and she ate brisket. She couldn't possibly find her way back to the cabin even if her life depended on it. She realizes that this was probably Ron's plan all along. He led her to some random place in the woods by having her follow a nonsense map then got her drunk and disoriented so she could never find his cabin again. How insanely clever! April wants to be Ron when she grows up. But she wants to be more mischievous. She wants to be more of the town witch than the town hermit. She wants kids to be scared of her and run and scream when they see her.

She doesn't actually want to grow up though. She's tired of taking care of Tom. Taking care of someone is a very grown up thing to do and it's immensely boring. It's just as boring as her stupid government job. She wants Tom to be gone. He won't break up with her though, despite his obviously being terrified of her. If he breaks up with her, he won't have anywhere to go except back to Ma and Pa Haverford. Rather than moving back home with them he would rather live in constant fear for his life with April, who stubbornly refuses to break up with him. The other option for dealing with Tom is, of course, killing him. 

Her thoughts of murdering Tom are so soothing that she drifts off to sleep.

She wakes up with a puddle of drool on her pillow. She wipes her face and laboriously pulls herself up into her desk chair. She yawns. She had a pleasant dream about dismembering Tom in a bathtub. 

There's some paperwork on her desk that wasn't there before her nap. She must've been totally out cold if someone came in and dropped paperwork off without waking her at all. She hopes she'll be fired for sleeping under her desk, but with her amazingly bad luck, she won't. She'll probably get a salary bump for no reason.

She yawns again and scribbles "Cuntzilla" on the bottom of each of the forms. She shoves them to the edge of her desk. She doesn't even know what she's supposed to do with them, or anything else she signs for that matter. Someone will come get them when they need them. They always do. Paperwork materializes and dematerializes on her desk regularly.

April checks the time. It's too early for her to go to lunch. It's even too early for her to go to lunch early. She likes to wait for the lunch specials at JJ's. So to pass the time she fishes out her murder napkins, which she stacked and tucked neatly into a drawer. As she's looking at them an idea pops into her head...

The idea is possibly brilliant, but also possibly really anticlimactic. She wants to go quid pro quo with Ben and Chris. If she helps them with Donna from inside city hall, they need to help her dispatch Tom. They don't need to kill him or anything, they just need to drive him out of her apartment and to somewhere, anywhere, else. She lets out a very loud groan. So loud that some heads turn at desks outside of her office. She glares at all of the vacant faces and they quickly get back to whatever they're doing. She then bangs her fist on her desk as she frustratedly realizes that she's just too lazy to kill her boyfriend on her own. She balls up her murder napkins and throws them into the trash, feeling extra disappointed with herself. She's just so lazy. Her deciding not to murder Tom certainly has nothing to do with any sort of fondness for him. She hates his guts and doesn't even have the slightest shard of a residual feeling for him. She never even liked him to start with. She was just really bored. Now she was even more bored. What a drag. 

She's meeting Ben and Chris after she gets off work to give them her answer. Ron already said no, but she remained on the fence. Her hatred of Tom is great enough to override her fear of Donna, she decides then and there. He needs to go. She'll get a dog instead. Ben and Chris are staying at the motor inn on the outskirts of Pawnee and she'll present her deal to them.


	21. Living With Ben Wyatt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No description available.

A loud knock on the door makes Ben Wyatt jump and slosh coffee onto the front of his shirt. The brown stain spreads quickly across the light blue linen and starts to cling to his undershirt. He looks dismayed and he frantically tries to dab the liquid away with handfuls of napkins he's accumulated on the small desk in the corner. 

"You're very nervous lately, Ben Wyatt," Chris Traeger says to him and makes his way to the door of the room at the Glory Ol' Motor Inn (which is an interesting name, he thinks). He smiles back at Ben Wyatt and then opens the door for April Ludgate. He smiles at her as well. 

"Chris Traeger," she greets him, emotionless.

"April Ludgate, hello." He ushers her inside pleasantly and then closes the door behind her. 

"It looks like you had a little accident, Ben Wyatt," she says to Ben Wyatt.

"Just Ben is actually fine," he tells her, still dabbing. 

"Ok, Just Ben."

"No, I meant Ben only." He still dabbing intensely as his wet shirt. 

"Whatever you want, Ben Only."

"Seriously, stop." Ben Wyatt is clearly frustrated. It is likely the combination of his coffee spill coupled with the strange sense of humor of April Ludgate. Chris Traeger makes a mental note to talk to Ben Wyatt about his feelings after their meeting with April Ludgate concludes. 

She sits down on the end of the bed and says to them both, "I thought about your little plan all day, except when I took a nap and then dreamed about murder. I'll help you overthrow Evil Dictator Donna, but you two need to help me with a little problem I have." Both men look at her, waiting for her to continue. "I need you to help me get rid of my boyfriend."

"Tom Haverford," states Chris Traeger.

"You guys did some serious stalking, didn't you? I'm not sure if I'm freaked out or totally flattered. Freaked out and flattered are pretty much the same thing in my book, so I guess it doesn't matter either way."

"You know, April," Ben Wyatt begins, sounding very stern and somewhat belittling, "You could just break up with Tom. I've found that being direct with people is really the best way to-"

"Throwing dick-shaped potatoes at the mayor is being direct?" she scoffs and doesn't allow him to finish.

Chris Traeger attempts to explain, "It isn't possible to be direct with a corrupt government. A corrupt government is an entity much larger than just Donna Meagle and the corrupt government has a number of measures in place to stop its own people from being direct, but in the case of personal relationships-" 

She interrupts him as well, "Gentlemen, I'm not here to get relationship advice from a robot and a troll. I'm here to make a deal with you. I'll help you if you help me."

"We're not hitmen," Ben Wyatt tells her flatly.

"Jesus Christ. I didn't say you had to kill him. Yes, I would like to kill him because I think it would be liberating and extremely satisfying. I just want to gaslight him so that he runs screaming from Pawnee and never comes back."

"If you'd like," says Chris Traeger, "I can act as an unbiased mediator so that you and Tom Haverford can speak openly about your issues in a controlled, neutral environment such as in this hotel room."

"Will he run screaming from the room at the end?" she questions, hopefully.

"Maybe. I can't say for sure. People can be unpredictable, even the most predictable ones."

"Listen, I just can't concentrate on saving the world when I have Tom all up in my business. He needs to go. He's distracting and he's a drain on my delicate psyche."

Ben Wyatt clears his throat and gets her attention. He's given up on his shirt for the time being. "Would you just like me to break up with Tom for you? I'm good at being direct."

"He is," Chris Traeger affirms.

"No. He has to break up with me or die. Those are the only two options."

"Well, we're not killing him," Ben Wyatt says again then he crosses his arms. "I'm confused as to why you want to be broken up with. Isn't it usually the other way around? People want to do the dumping not get dumped?"

April Ludgate snickers and says, "Dumping." After a moment she composes herself again and asks, "Will you help me or not?"

Chris Traeger agrees to her terms and Ben Wyatt follows his lead. April Ludgate is given her first assignment. It's a simple one. The next time that Donna Meagle orders Chinese takeout for lunch, she must intercept the order and swap out the real fortune cookie with a fake one containing an eerie fortune written by Chris Traeger. He gives her the cookie, which he has had carefully packaged to be an exact replica of the cookies from Wang Express. He then sees her out of the room and is pleased with the results.


	22. Tom's Diner?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do do do-do do do do-do.

Tom would be a billionaire by now if he had any money. He thinks himself an entrepreneur that just hasn't been discovered yet and his hard work will eventually pay off. He has a lot of ideas and he's sure that all of them are great. if he had a dime for all of his ideas, he'd probably have around $25, which is actually close to the amount of money he does have at the moment. He has a new idea and he needs to find investors because his $25 isn't enough to get it off the ground. He's going to pitch his idea to his first prospective investor today - Ron Swanson. Ron has been his benefactor on a number of occasions and he's sure that his new idea is right up Ron's alley. 

It's Friday and Tom knows that Ron will be at The Glitter Factory enjoying the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Tom also frequents The Glitter Factory, but usually for the strippers. He hasn't seen his girlfriend's boobs since their first date. He doesn't even want to see them now and he's afraid they might be rigged to shoot lasers and kill him if ever they were set free from her shirt. He is petrified of April. She said she was writing a novel several weeks before and she asked him to proofread the first chapter. It was about a girl named May who murdered her boyfriend Tim. He knew that April didn't care much for him, and he wanted to break up with her. He really did, but thought their relationship had grown into a symbiotic one like all adult relationships eventually do. She bought all of the food and paid all of the bills and he provided...positivity? After reading the chapter of her "novel" he realized he was mistaken, but he wasn't sure how to break up with a crazy person. She could snap and kill him just like May killed Tim.

If he could just get some investors he could get out of her apartment and seek shelter somewhere on the opposite side of Pawnee, away from her. He makes sure that his tie is straight (it has a bacon and egg motif) and that his shirt is properly tucked in then he brushes his teeth. He smiles widely with his mouth partially open and eyes huge - this is his winning smile. It's how he gets all the ladies and also how he hopes to get Ron to invest in his latest business venture (along with the awesome bacon and egg tie he bought).

"Lookin' good, Tom," he says and he wishes he had never displayed his winning smile to April. He wishes he'd never met her at the Snakehole. He'd had too much to drink the night he asked her out. He'd had a half of a shot of whiskey. Too much! Too damn much!

April had looked sexy and mysterious. She said she worked at the Post Office, which was a lie. He's surprised that she told him her real name, although he now doubts that her middle name is actually Satan as she claims. It would be appropriate, but he's pretty sure it's a lie. 

Once satisfied with his appearance, Tom heads out. He whistles an upbeat tune as he makes his way leisurely to The Glitter Factory. 

"Hey, Tom," the doorman greets him.

He gives him a wink and a nod then sees Ron and struts toward him. The last time he talked to Ron, he sent the man into a giggling fit. Ron looks up from his plate and says, "What can I do for you today, Tom?"

Before he can begin his pitch, two women start making their way over to Tom - Sapphire and Buttons. They both pout and skulk away when he says, "Not today. I'm here on important business."

How own heart breaks a little seeing their sad faces and their cleavage. He looked back at Ron. He's watching him, chewing slowly and waiting patiently. He has several plates laid out in front of him. He is finishing up the third and about to move on to the fourth. 

"I have two words for you, Ron," Tom begins. When he speaks the two words he slaps on his winning smile and looks above Ron's head with a dreamy expression. He raises his hands and with each word he expands his fingers dramatically, creating what he calls finger explosions. He says, "Tom's...Diner!"

"No," Ron says immediately, sliding the newly emptied plate out of the way and sliding a full plate in front of him. 

"What?!" he's shocked. "You didn't even let me finish my pitch."

"No."

"You love diners!"

"I love JJ's Diner."

"But Tom's Diner-"

"Is a song by Suzanne Vega that is mysteriously entrancing."

"Who?" Tom sighs and collapses into the booth next to Ron. He loosens his tie and sighs yet again.

"You'd be competing with JJ's Diner. What would be different about your diner?"

Tom thinks for a few seconds, "It would be high-end."

"A high-end diner?"

"Quail eggs and stuff," says Tom.

Ron looks over at Tom, takes another bite, chews slowly, swallows then asks, "Would your diner be on a corner?"

"Maybe?"

Another bite, chew, swallow and then, "Would there be a counter?"

Tom nods.

A bite again, "A man pouring coffee?"

Tom is perplexed, "Maybe a woman?"

"No."

"Because I might hire a woman? I fully intend to be an equal opportunity employer and I will hire whoever is most qualified for the position, Ron."

Ron's brow crinkles. He picks up the silk napkin laid across his lap and he wipes his mustache, never taking his eyes off of Tom. He speaks after several moments pass and he says, "I'm not investing because it's a poorly thought out idea, Tom. You already owe me a substantial amount of money for a number of other poorly thought-out schemes. I invested in them because I believed in you, Tom, not in your ideas."

"I'm not sure that was an insult..."

"I don't know if I believe in you anymore, Tom."

This hurts Tom's feelings almost as much as the sad faces that the strippers made when he turned them away. He wishes he hadn't turned them away now since his pitch was a bust. "Tom's Diner" had such a nice ring to it too.


	23. Leslie Makes Several Notable Rebounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life Choices 101

"Ms. Knope, your tibia is healing very nicely," the doctor tells her. "You'll be 100% again in no time at all."

"You hear that, Ann?!" Leslie speaks excitedly.

"I heard it, Leslie," she says with mock enthusiasm. Sarcasm isn't normal for Ann.

Ann's tone throws Leslie off just slightly, but she quickly refocuses, thanking her doctor, and gathering her crutches. Nothing is going to bring her down on this particular day. She decides that this day is actually the first day of the rest of her life, since she had to postpone it after the fall into the pit. It's been postponed for several weeks now, but no more! Today is the day.

"Let's go to JJ's," Leslie says to Ann when they get back to her car.

"Are you sure?"

Leslie nods her head adamantly, "I'm sure. Today is officially the first day of the rest of my life and what better way to commemorate it, but with a return to my most favorite eatery in Pawnee?"

"I guess so," Ann sighs as she tries her car's ignition and it sputters before starting.

"You should probably take your car in to get looked at, Ann."

"I know. I know," she says. "I've been meaning to."

"I put things off and I got stuck in a funk. You shouldn't put things off, you coy starfish."

Ann looks over at her confusedly in the passenger seat then they pull out of the hospital parking lot. When they arrive at JJ's Diner, Ann asks Leslie, "You sure you're ready for this? How long has it been since you've been here?"

Leslie feels only a little nervous. She thinks a moment and answers, "I haven't been here without a disguise since my, you know..." She whispers the final word, "Scandal."

"Ah. Ok," she says. "Well, let's go then."

It takes Leslie a minute to maneuver her leg and crutches out of the car. Ann helps her. Ann is always so helpful, even if she's been a little weird lately. She's been kind of catty, which is very unlike Ann. Ann is normally the fluffiest, most beautiful, frightened kitten. They make their way inside and JJ's is bustling. It's lunch time, which is the worst time for Leslie to go inside if she hopes not to run into anyone from the Parks Department. She's planning to face her fears head-on though. Go big or go home, Leslie, she keeps telling herself. No more baby steps for Leslie Knope. No more procrastination! It's the first day of the rest of your life, Leslie!

They are seated at a cozy booth and at first Leslie doesn't see anyone from her former place of employment. Her heart is still pounding. The sweet smell of waffles is helping to sooth her nerves. And Ann is with her. Perfect angel Ann. Leslie's adoration of perfect angel Ann is interrupted by a sardonic voice from the booth behind her.

"Leslie motherfuckin' Knope!"

Ann looks over the top of her menu, her eyes on the person behind Leslie. Leslie slowly turns around to see April Ludgate, current head of the Parks Department. She is pillowing her head on her folded arms on the back of the booth with absolutely no expression on her face. 

"Language, April. This is a family establishment," Leslie reprimands her. "You're also a representative of the noble Pawnee Parks Department."

"Chill out, Mom," she rolls her eyes then glares toward Ann. "Who's the old lady you're eating lunch with, Leslie?"

Ann makes the face that Leslie has so many times warned her about and then she ducks behind the menu.

"This is my best friend Ann Perkins. Are you here alone? Come sit with us," Leslie realizes that she is not at all afraid to be seen in public by April. April was her protege...sort of. Well, she tried to make April her protege. She isn't sure if it exactly worked, although April did end up becoming head of the Parks Department somehow. Leslie likes to think it was because of the work ethic she instilled into her intern.

April vanishes below the back of the booth and reappears next to them. She's so stealthy. She's like a skinny, skeleton ghost. Leslie slides over with her crutches and to allow her to sit down.

"Ann," Leslie says, "This is April Ludgate."

"Nice to meet you," she says pleasantly, still making the face.

April groans then says to Leslie, "What are you doing with your life now that you're a disgraced former government employee?"

"I'm going back to school. I'm going to be a dental hygienist."

"Gross. Mouths are like the buttholes of the face, only reversed, Leslie. You can do better than that. You should have changed your name and moved out of Pawnee."

"The mouths of the people of Pawnee won't be face buttholes after I'm done with them," she says confidently. She takes a deep breath and then asks a question that is burning inside of her, "How's everything at city hall?"

They're interrupted by the waitress coming to take their orders. Leslie gets delicious Belgian waffles. April then says, "Mayor Meagle ordered some Chinese food the other day and apparently got a fortune cookie that said something like:  _Your quest for power begins and ends in Pawnee, Donna Meagle_. Something like that. She totally freaked out, but wanted to keep it on the DL. I guess I would have freaked out too if my name were on a fortune cookie."

Leslie finds herself intensely craving city hall gossip, almost as much as she is craving waffles. She asks, "Anything else interesting?"

"Uh, interesting? No. Rhonda is still useless."

"Rhonda?"

"That dude with the bad gas that is always jamming the copier," April reminds her.

"Oh! Rhonda! Rhonda Gergich..." Leslie feels like his name might actually be something else, but she can't remember. Rhonda it is. "Working on any cool projects?"

"Not if I can help it."

Leslie laughs. She's sure April is joking. April is always joking. She's such a comedienne. The three of them then have what she believes to be a pleasant lunch and it's definitely a great way to start the first day of the rest of her life. Ann doesn't say much. Ann is so shy. When they get back to Ann's apartment, she opens a bottle of wine, although it's early afternoon and a workday.

"Ann?" Leslie says to her, wondering what she's up to. "Aren't you going back to work?"

"No. I took the whole day off."

"Ann?" Leslie questions as she sits down on the couch, "What's wrong, Ann?"

Ann ignores her question and asks, "Do you need anything while I'm in here?"

"No-" she starts to say then, "Actually, yes. Can you bring me a bottle of water?"

"Once your cast is off, you won't need me anymore. You're going to get your own place, move out, and get on with your life," Ann blurts out suddenly and unexpectedly once she sits down.

Leslie is taken aback by this burst of emotion, "Ann Perkins, you pretty, foolish, good friend, you." She grabs onto her shoulders and shakes her once, twice, three times. "You are my best friend and if you don't want me to move out then just say so!"

Ann's head lolls around as Leslie shakes her. She says, "It's not just that..."

"Stop trying to be mysterious, Ann. Our friendship is based on openness and honesty, so out with it...out with your secrets!"

She groans, "I like you."

"I like you too, Ann."

"No, I like you."

"I like you too, Ann." Leslie can do this all day. Ann is already drunk, she thinks. Maybe Ann is not the functional alcoholic she thought she is.

"No," she says firmly and grabs onto Leslie's shoulders so that they're sitting on the couch holding onto each other's shoulders rather ridiculously, staring into each others' eyes. She gives Leslie a rough shake and speaks slowly. "I. Like. You."

Leslie lets her hands drop and then pulls them into her lap. She purses her lips and she studies Ann's face for indications of dishonesty or that she's joking. Ann is just looking back at her. She mutters in response after several long seconds, "Oh. I see."

Ann releases her grip on her, snatches up her glass of wine, stomps into the kitchen for the bottle and then she disappears down the hallway. Leslie hears her bedroom door shut. She remains sitting exactly as she was on the couch, hands in her lap, befuddled. What an interesting turn of events on the first day of the rest of her life. How in the world did such a thing happen to perfect angel, starfish Ann Perkins? Leslie thought that developing inappropriate, surprise crushes was sort of her thing. Like getting attached to the city hall shoe shine guy after a one-night stand - that's totally Leslie's thing. Her wonderful best friend Ann deserves the most wonderful and perfect man (or woman, she supposes) not some disgraced former government employee, now unemployed hopeful dental hygiene student with a broken leg. Maybe the old Leslie Knope would have been adequate, but...

Nevermind. She will put off thinking about this. She completely disregards her own advice about procrastination and decides that this is something that warrants procrastination. She can't reach the TV remote without getting up though.

"Ann? Ann, I can't reach the TV remote," she calls out.

Ann's door opens and she comes out in her usual at-home sweatpants. She picks up the remote from the coffee table and hands it to Leslie then turns and retreats back to her room, closing the door again without saying a word. Leslie needs several more odd things as the day progresses, and Ann performs as requested, but without saying anything. Leslie doesn't care for Silent Ann. Late that night, Leslie finally decides to think about Ann's feelings. Leslie has become accustomed to being in a relationship, albeit it was an odd one with Andy. She also likes being taken care of. She can completely understand why Andy liked her to take care of him. She deserves to be taken care of for once in her life, doesn't she? Yes, of course. She paid her dues. Ann is so nice and so helpful and apparently likes her, in spite of her being a disgraced former government employee.

Leslie swings her legs off of the bed and reaches out in the dark for one of her crutches. She uses the crutch for leverage to get up then hobbles carefully toward the door of her room. She dodges some of Ann's boxes of canned food and opens it slowly and quietly. She peeks across the hall. Ann's door is slightly ajar, but the room is dark. A little bit of illumination in the apartment is coming from the light in the hall bathroom. She uses the wall for support and then pushes Ann's door open. Ann is sleeping and the bottle of wine sits empty on her her side table.

For a minute, Leslie thinks about turning around and going back to her own room. She fidgets and as she fidgets she drops her crutch. It clatters against the doorframe behind her making way more noise than she ever would have expected. Ann sits up with an, "Ah!"

"Uh..." Leslie mutters and realizes that standing there at the end of her bed watching her sleep is a totally creepy Edward Cullen thing to do. This is not one of her best plans.

"What are you doing, Leslie?" she asks sleepily and rubs her eyes.

"I came to tell you that I'm open to the idea..."

"What idea?"

"Ann, you dense piece of cake, you. You know what I mean. It's the first day of the rest of my life and I'm turning over a new leaf. A new, open to a new relationships leaf?"


	24. Against His Better Judgement, Ron Gives Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then regrets it.

April makes use of the second chair on Ron's porch. He realizes that it's quite foolish indeed to have two chairs as just one man. April has been granted access if only to make use of the second chair. He gave her extremely specific instructions about both coming and going from his cabin. First, she must always make sure that no one sees her entering the woods. Second, she must never enter the woods at the same location twice in a row. She must also never take the same route two days in a row when coming nor when leaving. Ron doesn't want any sort of paths to start forming. People are tempted to follow paths and he can't have that. He presents her with sixteen viable routes on napkins, which she memorizes and then destroys.

"When is your stupid, pointless mediation with Tom?" he asks her and tops off her tumbler with whiskey.

"It's not pointless. Tom is going to flee Pawnee screaming afterward, which will also benefit you. He'll stop begging you to support his stupid business ideas."

Ron takes a seat and places the bottle of whiskey on a very nice table that he also made. "While I appreciate the benefits of Tom being gone, I don't understand why you agreed to a mediation. Do you know what the word 'mediation' means? It strongly implies that you two want to work things out, come to an agreement."

"The agreement we're going to reach is going to be Tom running, screaming from Pawnee. He may or may not be lit on fire before he goes. We can't actually be mediated, not even by that robot Chris."

He grunts and takes a sip of his own drink.

April looks over at him and asks, "What's your solution then? Are you in the 'just break up with him' camp or the 'murder him' camp? I thought you were on Team Murder Tom."

"My solution?" he laughs a little. "My solution is never to have been in a relationship to begin with."

"Your solution is time travel? Thanks, bro."

He glares at her. He is no bro. He is not her bro. "After you put your relationship with Tom to rest, I hope you resist the urge to enter into another relationship."

"I've learned my lesson, don't worry."

"Good. Yourself is the only person you need to be happy."

"Is that why you keep inviting me over for dinner?" An evil smile stretches across her face.

"You're here because I have two chairs."

"You subconsciously made two chairs, Ron."

"I don't believe in the subconscious."

She laughs. She's laughing at him. She likes to try to torment him, but he's immune to her words. He is not a weak, puny human who allows words to cause him pain. She looks at him quizzically and asks, "Hypothetically, if you were in a relationship with someone you totally hated-"

"I have been in a number of relationships. I tried being married, even. Not once, but twice. I fled. I am the one that ran screaming...metaphorically, only. I don't scream."

"I find you fleeing hard to imagine."

"My life was in danger. A smart man gets out before he gets murdered."

April nods, "Those are wise words. Why isn't Tom properly fleeing? I've dropped him so many hints that I plan to kill him and he just won't go."

"I can't speak for Tom. I can only speak for myself."

"What do you think he's thinking?"

"I don't know, I only know what I'm thinking, which is that this conversation is frivolous."

She shrugs and looks around the patch of land that composes Ron's yard and then asks him, "Do chickens eat human remains or is that only pigs?"

He raises an eyebrow, "Feeding human remains to my chickens would contaminate their meat and their eggs. I can't have that." He then says to her, "Tell me, Ludgate. Why?"

"Why what?"

He doesn't understand what she doesn't understand about what he views as a very straight-forward, simple question. Perhaps April isn't quite as clever as he thought. He repeats, "Why?"

"Stop being existential, Ron," she rolls her eyes. 

He grunts again. He isn't being existential. Or is he? He watches her as she swirls the whiskey in her glass. This time he has a honey ham in the oven that they're waiting on. He realized the other day that he also had four finely crafted chairs around his kitchen table when he is only one man. He does not intend to have two other people over though, ever. Especially not all at the same time. He also can't have an incomplete kitchen set because that would be wrong. He must keep all four chairs.

After several sips and making a thoughtful face, at least as thoughtful of a face as he has ever seen her make, April says, "I was bored, I guess. Tom seemed ok at first...he was entertaining at least." Ron nods. Tom was vaguely entertaining at first, occasionally still is like with his completely idiotic idea for Tom's Diner. April went on, "But then I got bored again...a different kind of bored. At the same time though, I'm used to him being around and annoying me to no end. Without him around, I'll just be bored in the first way again. God, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud."

The two sit in silence for several minutes. April's mouth is tightly shut and she looks angry. Ron breaks the peaceful silence, "If I were to point my gun at Tom would you tackle him to save his life like that Wyatt fellow did for that Traeger fellow?"

"Oh, hell no," she answers without hesitation. "If you killed him it would save me the trouble of killing him and hiding the body and covering up the murder would stop be from being bored for a while, I think."

"I'm not going to shoot Tom."

"Don't get my hopes up."

He takes another drink and says, "If ever you find yourself in another situation where a relationship may spawn, ask yourself that question."

April is obviously displeased with the direction their conversation has taken. She looks like she wants to punch something. He is also displeased because he has just given advice. She completely changes the subject and he's grateful to her. She says, "I saw Leslie Knope at JJ's a few days ago."


	25. The Mediation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "Mediation."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My God, maybe I should drop the rating down to T because this still isn't getting very M. I'm the worst. What has happened to me?!

Ben puts a lid on his coffee this time. It should minimize the splash should he be startled by anything. He doesn't want to have to take another shirt to the dry cleaner. They've been in Pawnee too long and he's sure that the authorities are going to find them any day now. He thinks they should at least change rooms at the Glory Ol' Motor Inn. When Ben brings up his concerns, Chris always just insists, "We'll be fine, Ben Wyatt. Everything is going swimmingly."

This makes his fears subside momentarily because Chris is the luckiest man alive. He has survived numerous scrapes with death and narrowly escaped the law on many occasions. His luck has rubbed off on Ben by proxy, but he's sure his luck can't possibly last forever. He hopes that it does, but rationally, it can't. They'll be caught and charged with all of their many misdemeanors. Donna Meagle is coming for them and he can feel it. He can't argue with Chris though. He can argue with anyone else in the world, but not Chris. Chris is always so positive about everything and positive in general, and his smile is so white and debilitating. When he smiles, Ben forgets the laundry list of things he's worried about and just wants to bask in the glow of this beautiful, lucky man-creature.

Now he's feeling worried all over again because more and more people are finding out where they are and who they are. By more and more, he means three, but that's too many. Tom Haverford isn't involved in their plot to destroy Mayor Meagle, but he's on his way to their room at the Glory Ol' anyway. Tom doesn't need to meet them or know what room they're in and Ben has no interest in meeting Tom. April just needs to break up with Tom like a normal person and then he and Chris need to pack up and leave Pawnee. Donna has shown no sign of wavering despite all of the weird things they've done to her. She's showing no sign that she's going to step down from her position and they don't actually have a plan for if she does because they've never made it this far in any of their previous schemes. He doesn't like to think of them as schemes, but it's what they are. Despite all of Chris' good intentions, idealism and positivity, they're ultimately just adult pranksters and screwing around with Donna Meagle is like poking a bear.

Chris has rearranged their room to prepare for this absurd mediation between April and Tom as if there's any reconciling them. April is quite possibly completely insane and Tom is incompetent and his laziness rivals April's. Ben is sure neither wants to reconcile and neither wants to break up with the other either - each for their own completely nonsense reasons. Well, Tom doesn't want to break up with April because he'll have to get a job, which is at least a tangible reason. April, on the other hand, doesn't seem to know what "rational" even means and seems to think that if she is the dumper and not the dumpee it somehow makes her the loser. She also laughs whenever anyone says "dump."

Ben is pacing the room, sipping his coffee. Chris looks at him curiously then smiles at him. He stops pacing. He sits down at the desk in the corner and looks toward the door with a quiet sigh. He anticipates the knock and subsequently doesn't spill his coffee. Chris welcomes April in and then a few minutes later, he welcomes Tom and introduces himself and Ben. They two didn't even come together because they can't bear to be around one another. Chris sits them down at opposites sides of the table so that they are facing one another then he sits between them and folds his hands in front of himself on the table. Smiling excitedly all the while.

"Who wants to start?" he asked them both in his normal jovial tone.

The two stare at one another and no one says anything. Chris looks from one to the other, still smiling and patiently waiting for one of them to take the lead. Ben can't take it anymore after several minutes of silence and he stands abruptly. He walks over to the table and positions himself across from Chris. He places his cup down with such force that some of the coffee splatters out onto his hand. "Dammit," he mumbles and shakes his hand off, completely losing the momentum he built by walking over and getting everyone's attention. He sighs and he looks at Tom, "April wants to break up with you, Tom."

"No, I don't," she snaps and crosses her arms. 

Tom perks up and looks at her with his head cocked to one side. He says confusedly, "You don't? Do you still love me?"

"See!" Chris exclaims, "They do both want to work through this!"

"Whoa!" yells April. "Whoa! No!"

Ben slams his palms down onto the table, silencing them all. He leans forward, trying to be intimidating and his tie lands right in the coffee splatter. He sighs again when he notices, but he carries on, "Let me rephrase...Tom, April wants to break up. She doesn't want to be the one to break up with you, but she no longer wants to be with you. Understand?"

"Oh..." he looks sad, like a puppy that has just piddled all over the floor. A puppy is cuter than Tom though. Ben doesn't know why Tom is disappointed by this. Tom spends all of his money at the Glitter Factor on two strippers named Sapphire and Buttons.

"In fact," Ben goes on and decides to hit him with the hard truth. "I'm pretty sure that April wants to murder you and would if she weren't so lazy."

"This is an interesting way to conduct a mediation," Chris observes with an amused smile.

"Tom," Ben says, "You need to get a job. You don't need to give up on your dreams of being an entrepreneur, but while you work on that, you really need to get a job, man. You need to get your own place and get out of April's place."

"What do you do?" Tom asks him, curiously. "I'm looking for investors and you look like fine gentlemen with money to invest." He suddenly has a huge, cartoonish smile.

"What do...what? No. What I do isn't relevant and no," Ben is thrown off by this sudden insertion of a very poor pitch.

Tom then looks toward April. Her arms are still crossed and her face is blank. "Will you love me again if I get a job?"

"I'd have to have loved you in the first place to love you again," she says flatly and rolls her eyes. 

"I'll be homeless," Tom pouts. April is unaffected. 

Ben runs his hands through his hair and takes a deep breath. Chris looks at him and says, "Why don't you let me take over from here, Ben Wyatt?"

He nods, picks up his coffee, and returns to the corner.

"I'm sorry about Ben Wyatt," Chris says to them. "He's very passionate. It's one of his best qualities."

Tom crosses his arms then and asks, "Why are we here exactly?"

"We are here," Chris laces his fingers and smiles even wider, "So that you and April Ludgate can reach an agreement that works for both of you in regards to your relationship."

"Actually," April says, "I want to set you on fire and then chase you out of Pawnee with an ax."

"If Tom Haverford agrees to that solution then it's what will be done," Chris tell them, gleefully. He isn't gleeful about April's proposed solution, but he's gleeful in general because he loves mediating.

Tom looks completely horrified. His eyes are bugging out and his jaw drops. Ben pipes up and says simply, "No."

"I didn't bring my ax," April says sarcastically with an exaggerated sigh. 

Ben is dismayed and he wants to bang his head on the desk, but he resists the urge. He has drawn a number of conclusions from his observations and he's fairly certain that April doesn't want to be alone and refuses to admit it, which is remarkably human of her. Tom doesn't want to work and April has enabled his laziness by refusing to talk to him about anything. At the same time that he's being enabled, Tom is also justifiably terrified of her (Ben definitely wouldn't want to live with April or run into her alone in an alley on a dark night). Neither is happy, but neither wants to actually do anything about it because ultimately, they've both grown pathetically complacent with their misery. And both are lazy. How are these two people still together? How did they end up together in the first place? He doesn't understand. He simply doesn't understand. 


	26. Donna's Descent Into Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I guess she's not doing as alright as the story description may have led you to believe.

The study of the Turnbill Mansion is kept dark-ish. The curtains are drawn and the room is lit only by the television playing reruns of _CSI_ and an antique gold candelabra that has been rigged with LED lightbulbs and is now battery-powered. The walls of the room are covered in photographs, notes and other items Donna has deemed pieces of evidence. Each piece of evidence is linked to other pieces by pushpins and string. It's just like in a movie with an obsessive detective. Donna is the obsessive detective. Pawnee's police force is completely incompetent. She supposes that she could do something about this as mayor, but not until she determines who is trying to undermine her authority.

Not a single person has come forward with any useful information about the menace. The police have gotten nowhere and the strange messages keep coming in various forms. They're riddles. Donna doesn't like riddles. At least the perpetrator(s) haven't done anything to her car. She's thankful for that at least. She's also thankful for her personal chef that lives in one of the spare bedrooms. Donna is never alone and also has delicious food whenever she wants it. Her personal chef has also helped with the ghosts. Whenever she hears a strange noise she just blames it on the chef and there's no more thinking about spirits in her big, old house except the good kind of spirits, which are alcohol.

Hands on her hips, she looks over all of the evidence on the dimly lit wall. The egg, the potato-penis, the Wang Express fortune, a series of cryptic messages in the _Pawnee Journal,_ fruit baskets and flowers with bizarre cards, photos of her placed in her mailbox at work with her face X-ed out...the pieces of evidence just keep stacking up and pointing her in no direction at all. The only thing she knows is that there is a person out there that doesn't like her one bit. They don't seem to be spreading their malcontent because the statistics haven't changed according to any of the polls - she's still right behind Li'l Sebastian in popularity.

Speaking of Li'l Sebastian, the radical Li'l Sebastian extremists aren't to blame for the vandalism nor the riddles. She sent one of her people into their cult as an undercover agent and they came out with nothing. The mini-horse lovers are harmless. Weird, but harmless. Harmless to Donna at least, so said her source. Maybe her source couldn't be trusted?

Trust no one...

"Watching too much damn  _X Files_ ," she says to herself. She has many close confidants on her payroll. They make the big bucks and this is how she knows she can trust them, but still...

What if her undercover spy started believing the ideologies of the Li'l Sebastian cultists? What if he became a convert? Joined them? Turned on her? Became a traitorous turncoat scum?!

Donna's fists are so tightly clenched she feels herself getting bicep muscles. She relaxes her hands, shakes out of her arms and takes a deep breath then walks the length of her evidence wall. She studies everything she's gathered. She blew up all of the pictures she took with her cellphone and had them printed on super-glossy paper to see if there were any details she missed. She should maybe turn on the overhead light in order to see them better. 

Nothing has been thrown at her since the potato-penis. She's only been getting odd things delivered to her and those weird messages in the classifieds. She hopes she hasn't missed anything else directed at her because she isn't looking in the right place. The fortune cookie fortune is what probably freaked her out the most. It still freaks her out and she stares at it pinned there to her wall. She also took a picture of it along with the wrapper and the half-eaten cookie itself. She finished the cookie after she took the photo. It tasted totally normal, but contained that creepy personalized fortune. The wrapper was even the same damn wrapper used at Wang Express. How'd this crazy person pull this off? Or people? What if they had an inside man or woman at city hall? Or an inside man or woman at Wang Express, her favorite Chinese takeout!

Panic grabs at Donna's mind, squeezing her brain and wringing out intense paranoia. Maybe she really couldn't trust anyone. What if her personal chef was a plant, planted by the enemy.

"I really do have an enemy..." she realizes with a start.

She is given another good fright when there's a knock on the door to the study. 

"Dinner, Donna," says the chef's voice from the other side.

"Leave it on the floor!" she yells, her voice coming out shrill and wavering. 

"Ok..."

Donna holds very still and listens. She hears the tray being placed on the floor outside of the door and then she hears the footsteps going down the hall. She tip-toes across the room and continues listening very carefully. She hears the chef moving down the stairs or at least she hears something that she thinks sounds like the chef moving down the stairs. Then she hears nothing aside from her own heartbeat and frightened breathing. She bends down and looks through the keyhole. She sees nothing except the hallway. She tries to look down and see her dinner, but she can't see it. She can smell it though. It smells magical - Maine lobster tail, poached in sweet butter with a radicchio salad and cole slaw and a jumbo Sweetums Sugar Splash.

She slowly opens the door and looks both ways down the hall. It's just the hall and this delicious tray of steaming food. Maybe she shouldn't eat it. It might be evidence. She picks it up and gazes at it as she takes it over to the desk she's been working from with the battery-powered candelabra. She decides to take a picture of it before she eats it, just in case. It's also some nice looking food and she'll share it on Instagram. After utilizing her phone's camera she looks up and realizes she forgot to close the door. She starts to get up, but then it creaks shut before she gets to it.

"Hell no, that door did not just close by itself," she says aloud. She doesn't want to attribute it to a ghost, but she's not sure how to attribute it to the chef. Maybe there was a draft. Old, damn drafty mansion. She checks the windows and thinks that maybe it's ghosts doing all of this to her. Poltergeists throw things, don't they? It could be the ghosts of Pawnee's past mayors. History is haunting her because she doesn't know anything about it and now it's mad because history is somehow sentient and doomed to repeat itself or whatever the hell that saying is...something, something, ghosts!

She scoffs at the historical ghosts and decides to sit down and eat. As she's enjoying her absolutely delicious dinner, she's scrolling through other images on her phone. She's got some good selfies, but then she notices something odd in one of her selfies from several weeks before...

She puts down her fork and takes a long drink of her soda as she zooms in on something (someone, rather) over her shoulder outside of city hall. The man is so plain she wouldn't otherwise notice him and she obviously missed him when she posted the selfie on Twitter for #MayorMonday. He's in the distance, in the shadow of regal building. He's holding a pair of binoculars and he's looking right at her. He's wearing khaki pants, a dress shirt and a tie. She knows all of the residents of Pawnee by face if not name and this man is a stranger. This boring man is the menace and now she has a picture of his boring, menace face.


	27. Ann Gets Hit On By Tom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is confused.

Although her constant gastrointestinal upset is not cured, it does mildly decrease after she and Leslie decide to enter into a very awkward relationship. Ann has also found that if she doesn't even try to do work at work that she feels a lot better too. Instead of working, she watches reruns of  _Law & Order: SVU _on the junk computer provided to her by the state. She justifies this new habit by telling herself that she's studying the procedural episodes. Whenever anyone comes in she is quick to pause the show and pull up a generic document. It's not as if her office is large enough for another human to come into and maneuver around her desk, but she likes to think she's prepared even if she isn't actually prepared for anything. 

She watches an episode where they talk about this psychological thing called transference, which happens when a patient falls in love with their therapist...or vice versa. She wonders briefly if that's what happened with her and Leslie. She's been acting as Leslie's nurse and taking care of her and maybe now their feelings are all mis-attributed or something. This makes her stomach gurgle and she stops thinking about it quickly. 

Leslie is taking her out on a date. Well, Leslie can't drive with her leg in the cast still, so Ann is driving to an unspecified location that Leslie picks. There's aren't many great date spots in Pawnee, but she knows Leslie would never voluntarily go to Eagleton. Ann really has no idea what Leslie has in mind. She's excited and confused about it, which of course ultimately makes her nauseous. It's almost like she's back in high school and she's stupidly nervous about dating some boy. Everything with Leslie is increasingly odd because they live together and Ann is still acting as Leslie's nurse while her leg is broken. Ann realizes the dynamics are odd, but she doesn't mind. Leslie compliments her constantly and makes her feel like she isn't quite a failure at everything she does.

After work, Ann walks to the mechanic where she dropped off her car that morning. Almost everything is convenient to everything else in Pawnee. It's one of the few good things about the little town. She goes inside and the bell jingles on the door. A guy pops up from behind the counter with a giant, idiotic grin on his face like some sort of freakish jack-in-the-box. He doesn't look like he has any idea what he's doing. His hands and his jumpsuit are remarkably clean, so he obviously hasn't worked on any cars on this particular day. His name tag indicates that his name is Tom.

"Um, I'm Ann Perkins. I left my car here this morning. It's been having issues starting," she says to him.

"Uh..." He maintains the same crazy expression and starts clicking and typing on the computer at the counter. He keeps looking up at her then at the screen. He repeats her name several times, "Ann Perkins. Ann Perkins."

"Yes. That's me - Ann Perkins. My car is a Honda. Do you need to see ID or anything?" It's a bit disconcerting if he doesn't need to see ID. It means that someone can just walk in here and take someone else's car. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen, she thinks. Maybe? She's not sure the more she thinks about it. Law is confusing.

"Um..." he looks at her, still with this grin. Then he says, "I'll be right back." He's sort of squirrel-like and he skitters through the door behind the counter. Tom returns a minute or so later, followed by another man, who looks annoyed. The second man's name tag reveals that his name is Frank. Frank the mechanic. He looks like a mechanic.

Frank says, "Just go home, Tom. You've done enough for today."

"Am I fired?" he asks, sounding much more excited about the prospect than he should be.

"No..." he tells him and then turns to Ann. "Miss Perkins, your car needed a new starter as well as alignment, new brake pads, and an oxygen sensor." A piece of paper emerges from a nearby printer, "Here's your receipt. Your total comes to-"

"Ok. Whatever," she's confused, as usual, and she quickly hands over her credit card, pretty sure that she just got scammed. She isn't sure though. He swipes her card and she says with too much inflection, "Thanks?"

"I'll pull your car around for you," he says after taking her money for a bunch of things she doesn't think she actually needed.

Tom is waiting by the door and he opens it for her. She mumbles a thank you and then he follows her out and says, "Miss Perkins. Ann! Ann Perkins." She turns and he extends his hand to her, introducing himself, "My name is Tom Haverford and I'm single."

"Uh, hi?" she shakes his hand because she's too confused not to.

He doesn't let go of her hand and he says, "Are you doing anything tonight because I happen to have a-"

"No," she shakes her head and pulls her hand away from him. She hesitates, "Wait, are you hitting on me?"

"Yes?"

The actual mechanic hands her the key to her car and tells Tom again to go home. She's dumbfounded to the point of no longer being able to verbally communicate, so she gets in her car and leaves. 

"Ann!" Leslie exclaims as soon as she opens the door.

She immediately says, "I got hit on by a guy at the mechanic's."

"Did he give you a sweet discount?"

"No...I don't think so."

"You did something wrong then, Ann." Leslie looks at her and sees her default confused face. "Oh, Ann. You are the most oblivious fungus that grows on the moist underside of a shiny rock."

Ann smiles faintly and asks, "So where are we going tonight?"

"It's a surprise."

"It can't be too much of a surprise because I'm driving." Leslie laughs at her comment as she makes her way into the kitchen and starts to open a bottle of wine. She stops because they're going out for dinner, but it's just so much of a habit. She asks, "Need anything?"

"A bottle of water would be nice, perfect angel Ann."

Ann smiles again and brings her the water.


	28. April Helps To Catch The Menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or does she? #MayorMenace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Farts.

Tom hasn't shut the fuck up about some hot girl that came to get her car from the mechanic's. Her name was Ann Perkins or something, which sounds familiar to April, but she can't be bothered with attempting to access her memory files to determine how she knows this person. She tried to get Chris, Ben, and Ron to go in on a betting pool with her for how long Tom could last trying to be a mechanic. He lasted five whole days. She would have made $10, but none of the other men in her life would participate.

Now, as if to ensure April's endlessly misery, Tom goes behind her back and under her very nose to become an administrator in the Parks Department. She apparently signed off on his hiring contract bullshit whatever one day when she was signing things "Cuntzilla" and not reading them (AKA everyday that she works). His arrival at her place of employment is horrifying and confusing. She locks her door and crawls under her desk, where she surely would have wept if her tear ducts weren't as dry as the Great Sphinx's vagina. 

As she's under her desk with her face buried tearlessly in her work pillow, she tries to remember if the Great Sphinx is male or female. This is also when she recalls Ann Perkins. Ann Perkins is Leslie Knope's best friend that she met at JJ's. Her mind then wanders and she begins to muse on the hilarity that would occur if Tom dated Ann and Ann were actually a man. Surprise, Tom!

April's computer makes a bloop noise, signifying mail in her work inbox. She decides to drag herself up off of the floor in order to respond to the email with a close-up picture of her armpit. She doesn't actually read her emails either, but she often hits Reply All and sends an interesting attachment (usually a close-up picture of an innocuous body part). This email is from Mayor Meagle with the subject line: HELP CATCH THE MAYOR MENACE.

Before she has a chance to not read the email, Tom comes plowing into her office without even attempting to knock. "Omigod, April. Do you follow Mayor Meagle on Twitter?"

"No," she says, unamused. She's also reminded that Tom now works in the same place as her and she will never escape him and she wants to die. 

"Well, she's been posting this picture all morning and she's been dramatically cropping it so it's like she's zooming in on this dude in the background." April pretends to lose control of her body, goes limp and hits her face on her desk. She then just lays there, pretending to be dead - hoping to be dead. Tom just keeps talking. He doesn't skip a beat. "The guy in the picture is supposed to be the guy who has been menacing her and look! She's offering a $1000 reward to anyone that can help identify him!"

April slowly raises her head. This is relevant to her because Tom met both Ben and Chris and April has become tangled in their web of riddle-pranks. She's also still petrified of Donna. She might need to flee Pawnee like a loser after all. Or go live in the woods like Ron. When she looks at the picture she bursts out laughing. It is loud, maniacal laughter. 

She then yells, "Rhonda! Get in here, Rhonda!"

Rhonda (Jerry?) waddles in and Tom stares at him, wide-eyed. Tom tries to speak, but cannot. He can only point. He points to his phone and he points to Rhonda.

"What's wrong, Ms. Ludgate?" Rhonda asked, his voice quivering along with the rest of his body.

"Rhonda, Rhonda, Rhonda," she begins. "Why have you been tormenting Mayor Meagle?"

"I don't know what you're talking about..."

"Quick, Tom! Run to the mayor's office and tell her I've trapped the menace for her! Tell her to bring her checkbook...or cash! Hurry, Tom!" April yells at him, getting to her feet and pointing to the door. Her voice is seething with sarcasm, but he does exactly as she says, nearly tripping over his own feet. He stumbles, but maintains his footing and then dashes out. 

Rhonda stares at her. He blinks. Then he starts to sweat. She can see it forming on his forehead and it's surprisingly fascinating to actually observe sweat appearing on someone's skin. He clasps his hands in front of him, probably praying to his God of Flatulence again. 

"Don't you move, Rhonda," April says to him and slowly moves around her desk. She's like a circling vulture. She positions herself between him and the door, his one escape. She's going to collect the $1000 reward and be rid of Rhonda. 

"Get him! Get the menace!" Donna bellows from behind her.

Two security guards rush past April, one on either side of her and they tackle Rhonda to the carpet. He lets out a loud, frightened fart and April immediately pulls the collar of her shirt up over her face as a make-shift gas mask. The security guards begin to cough because they are unprepared for Rhonda's intensely potent natural defenses. Rhonda is a lot like a skunk, only skunks are cute and tomato juice will get out their stink. Only time will remove the stink of Rhonda-fart.

Donna starts to enter April's office, but April holds up a hand to halt her before she crosses the threshold. "Hold your breath, Mayor!" she says with her nose pinched so that her voice is hilariously nasal.

Donna nods a thank you to her and marches in with her phone on a selfie stick. She begins snapping pictures of herself posing with the incapacitated Rhonda and gagging security guards in the background. 

"Are you going to tweet this, Mayor Meagle?" Tom asks her excitedly. He's practically jumping up and down and staring at his own phone. His thumbs are flying across his screen. 

The mayor can't respond because she's holding her breath. She exits the room and exhales noisily then rapidly types on her own phone. She looks toward Tom and says, "Of course! Come get a selfie with me! Want to borrow my selfie stick?" Quite a crowd has gathered and she speaks to the group. "Be sure to use the hashtag #MayorMenace, everyone! This is a monumental day for Pawnee!"

"What's going on?" Rhonda cries out. "Is this about Leslie Knope?!"

Everyone pauses and looks toward him. April takes some cautious steps in his direction and then stands over him, "What does Leslie have to do with anything?"

The security guards have released Rhonda and they're attempting to find an area in April's office without contaminated air. One is fumbling with the latch on her window in desperation. Rhonda seems to be stuck on his back on the floor, immune to his own great stench. He rolls around and shouts, "The scandal! The scandaaaaal was meeeeeee!"


	29. Andy's Prison Tattoos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, in prison...

When Andy enters the visiting room at visiting time, he sees both Ann and Leslie sitting at one of the little tables - today is definitely a special treat! It started out with breakfast burritos, which have quickly become his favorite prison breakfast. Now, he's being visited by his two favorite women that may or may not be making out with each other while he's in prison, which is totally cool with him.

"Oh no, Andy! Your hands!" Leslie exclaims as soon as he sits down.

He's confused and looks down at his hands. Across his knuckles are the words FAST FOOD in black, childishly scrawled letters. "These are fake," he tells her. "I wanted to see what it would look like. I also thought about FREE FOOD, but I don't know yet."

"Andy, what did I tell you about prison tattoos?" Ann reminds him, kindly. Ann's so nice to him. She talks to him like a mom. If he had met her before he dated Leslie, he would have wanted to date her instead...or too. Both of them, he thinks. He likes them both. They are the two nicest, coolest women he's ever met. Two girlfriends are better than one, right? Two breakfast burritos are better than one.

"You said no prison tattoos, but-"

"Butts go in seats, Andy," says Leslie.

"My cellmate though, he gives prison tattoos..." Andy says to them sheepishly, looking down at his marker tattoos on his hands. "He said I had to get one from him."

"Oh, God," Ann groans.

"Andy," Leslie says in her mom-voice. She makes him feel guilty.

They're both disappointed and he's in the middle of their disappointment, so he's like this guilty Andy and disappointment sandwich. He manages to smile at them and he says, "Let me show you...you might like it."

"It's not on your ass is it, Andy?" Leslie questions.

"No, no. It's here," he points to his left pec. He unbuttons his jumpsuit and the women exchange glaces with one another then look back at him. He shifts his jumpsuit off of his shoulder and then stretches the collar of his undershirt so the ladies can see his boob.

"What in the world is that?" Ann asks squinting at it.

Leslie's mouth falls out and she gasps, "That is a copy of the layout of Pawnee in 1877!"

"Inmate, what are you doing?!" One of the guards reprimands him. "Does this look like a conjugal trailer?! No! Keeps your clothes on!"

Andy grins at Leslie as he buttons his jumpsuit back up. She likes it. She might not admit it at first, but he knows she does. He tells her, "Mark, my cellmate, he found it in a book in the library."

"Let me get this straight, Andy. You for real have city plans tattooed on your chest?" Ann doesn't like it. He can also tell this. Well, maybe Ann is just confused. He nods. Leslie is still sort of gaping.

Andy says to his ex-girlfriend, feeling pleased with himself, "I don't know if you saw it, but my nipple is city hall."

Ann rubs her temples, but Leslie laughs and then says, "Hey, do you want to sign my cast?"

"Yeah!" Andy answers excitedly. Today is the coolest day. Without even asking her, Ann gets a pen out of her briefcase and hands it to him. Leslie sticks her leg out beside the table and he draws a big heart then writes his name inside. He hands the pen back to Ann and he asks Leslie, "I guess this means you're not mad at me for the pit, right?"

"I'm a little mad. I'm mostly mad you were making meth in the bathroom sink."

He looks away from her and quietly says, "Sorry, Leslie."

"It's ok, Andy. But listen," she clears her throat then she says, "I came here to tell you that I'm dating Ann now."

He looks up at them and says, "That's cool." Then there's a moment of silence before he asks, "Will you two make out?"

"Now?" asks Ann.

"No," Leslie responds.

"Oh, ok. That's cool too. It was worth a shot," he frowns, but then he turns his frown upside down. "Do either of you want snacks? I have lots of prison bucks saved up for blue Pepsi, but I'll buy you some snacks."

"We're fine," Ann says.

"Actually," says Leslie, "Do they have any of those discontinued Sweetums candy bars...what were they called?" she looks toward Ann for an answer, but Ann shrugs. She looks back at Andy, "Um, just bring me something we can't find in Pawnee anymore. It can be anything."

"You really want discontinued food from prison that's probably like eight years old?" Ann looks confusedly at Leslie.

She shrugs and says, "It's novel. Sweetums uses so many preservatives that I'm pretty sure they're food will last forever anyway."

"I'll be right back," Andy tells them. He gets Leslie some Sweetums Sugar-Cheeze Bawlz, which he hasn't seen in Pawnee in several years.

When he comes back, Leslie is looking at her phone and she says to Ann, "It's April again. I wonder why she keeps calling."

"April was the intern, right? She was pretty hot," Andy comments and hands her the carefully selected snack. Her eyes light up like they did when she saw his cool prison tattoo. He didn't think a city plan prison tattoo was cool at first, but that was totally dumb of him. He's learned a lot about making assumptions since he's been in prison.

 


	30. Rhonda Gergich: Menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Leslie's scandal is revealed.

Embezzling. 

Embezzling is probably the most totally boring scandal that a government employee can be involved in. Leslie Knope had been accused of stealing dollars from the good taxpayers of Pawnee to pad her own wallet and then cook the books to make it look like she was doing all sorts of helpful programs and shit for the very taxpayers she was stealing from. So basically, she's hella untrustworthy. She resigned without even an attempt to deny the poorly executed cover-up.

April thought Leslie was kinda cool for embezzling. She didn't think of it so much as stealing from the people of Pawnee as she thought of it as stealing from the government. She liked the idea of the latter quite a lot. 

Rhonda's confession threw everyone completely off. April thought that perhaps he could smell his own mighty fart and that perhaps some brain cell were killed by the noxious fumes. Why else would he make such a claim? Unless, of course, it were true.

If it were true, the implications were rather far-reaching.

"Hurry up, open that window," Donna says to the security guard messing with the latch.

"Let me do it, get out of the way," April says. She flips the latch and shoves the window open then does the same to all of the windows in her office. 

Once the windows are open, Donna enters with Tom slinking in behind her, and she shuts the door. Rhonda sits up and says, "It was me."

"You're the one who was embezzling _and_ you've been menacing me?" Donna questions.

"No, I wasn't embezzling and I'm not the menace either."

"You're in the picture," says Tom and shows Rhonda his phone.

April sits on the edge of her desk, crosses her arms and observes quietly. 

Donna extends her selfie stick and prods the man on the floor in the chest, "One thing at a time. Who are you?"

"My name is Garry Gergich. I work here. In the Parks Department. My desk was across from yours when you worked here, Donna."

"It was?" she scratches her head. "I don't remember you at all."

"I thought your name was Rhonda," Tom says, eyeing him with intense suspicion.

He sighs, ignores Tom and says to the mayor, "When you worked here, everyone called me Jerry."

"Jerry? Nope. Doesn't ring a bell," she shrugs and then says. "Let's move on. You've been menacing me."

"No, I haven't. I've always liked you. I even vote for you and not Li'l Sebastian for the surveys every week."

This pleases Mayor Meagle, but she still speaks to him firmly, "Explain why you were in the background of my selfie with binoculars."

"I'm an amateur bird-watcher. Sometimes I come to city hall early because there are a lot of birds in the bushes and trees around the building. I saw a Spotted Towhee."

"Bird-watching? Spotted Towhee? Those sound made up as hell!" Tom interjects.

Donna studies Rhonda for a minute or two and then looks something up on her phone. April assumes she's verifying this weird variety of bird he mentioned. She rubs her chin as she looks at the screen then purses her lips as she looks back at the gray-haired, chubby guy on the floor. "Now what's this about the embezzling, Rhonda?"

"My name is...oh, nevermind." He sighs and wipes sweat from his forehead. "There was no embezzling. It just looked like there was..."

She prods him again in the chest with her selfie stick and demands, "Go on."

"It all started one day when I spilled coffee on some inter-departmental receipts..."

Rhonda proceeds to tell the most absolutely boring, long, drawn-out tale of spilling and smudging. April thought embezzling was boring before Rhonda's story, but it was even more boring after. She thinks she may have even fallen asleep sitting up and with her eyes open at some point in the middle. Tom spaced out and even started picking his nose and didn't realize it. Donna seemed to listen intently, but she may have mastered the art of astral projection and totally escaped the painfully boring situation. 

When Rhonda finally finishes talking, Donna say only, "A great injustice..." Then she walks out and Tom follows her, right on her heels.

April looks at the two security guards and said, "I guess this means I don't get my reward money for catching the menace, huh?"

"He is a menace," one of the burly men says.

The other finishes his sentence, "But he isn't the Mayor Menace."

"Leslie took the fall for my blunders," Rhonda says, hanging his head. "It's been eating me up inside. It's given me the worst gas."

"Guilt gas?"

He nods and his entire body jiggles. April remains sitting on the edge of her desk, thinking about the bits and pieces she actually heard of his confession. It wasn't quite a confession because no actual crime occurred. He just screwed up some numbers - a bunch of numbers over a prolonged amount of time - and didn't tell anyone. He ended up fudging more and more numbers to compensate from the initial coffee-spill-smudge incident and it was all pinned on Leslie, who really was using the money for assorted Parks Department-related programs for the community. April wonders if Leslie knew she was taking the blame for Rhonda. Regardless, this series of events that were unfortunate for Leslie Knope also turned out to be incredibly unfortunate for April. The dominoes began to fall and she ended up in this terrible job and it was all Rhonda's fault.

She watches him as she tries to get up off of the floor. She thinks about going over to help him up. She stands and walks around her desk to her chair and decides to call Leslie. 


	31. It's Time For Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At JJ's Diner. Again.

Ann picks up Leslie's phone and hands it back to her after it clatters to the asphalt of the visitor lot at the state prison. Leslie was hobbling along on her crutches and cradling her phone against her face with her shoulder trying to get to Ann's car and call April back at the same time.

April left her several vague messages that all said the same thing: _Leslie, t_ _he Pagan gods of the Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation want you to call me. This is April, in case you didn't save my number on your phone._

So she was trying to call her back, but then she dropped her phone. When she gets the phone back to her ear, she hears April say, "Leslie? Are you being mugged?"

"No, no," she says, "I'm leaving prison."

"Does that mean you're being mugged or not? Are you talking in code so your mugger doesn't suspect anything?"

Ann opens the passenger side door of her car for her and takes her crutches then puts them in the backseat. Ann is so helpful all the time without Leslie even asking. It's like Ann can read her mind. Ann is a beautiful psychic catfish. As she gets into the car, she says to April, "No. I'm fine. I was visiting Andy and I dropped my phone. What did the Pagan gods of the Pawnee Parks Department want me to call you for?"

"Maybe we should meet for lunch. JJ's?"

"I'm always down for JJ's, but I'm leaving Michigan City."

"That's cool. I'll just take a three-hour lunch break."

Leslie says, "Is everything ok? You seem more cheerful than usual...than ever, I mean."

"Everything's great. I might finally lose my job," she says nonchalantly. "Oh, hey. Are you going to bring that hideous spinster with you?"

"Hideous spinster?" She's confused. "Do you mean Ann? Ann isn't a hideous spinster. She's my most wonderful best friend and girlfriend."

"Girlfriend? That makes you marginally less boring. I'll see you at JJ's." She hangs up.

"To JJ's Diner, perfect angel Ann!" Leslie exclaims and points in a random direction. She actually has no idea which direction JJ's is from the prison.

"Hideous spinster?" Ann muses, "I get the distinct feeling that April doesn't like me very much."

"Sure, she does."

"Really? Because she's never said anything to me and the only thing she's said about me have been pretty mean."

Leslie hasn't noticed this. Ann is being a delicate snowflake cluster. Her job makes her quite dour sometimes. She didn't appreciate the amazing piece of body art that Andy got in prison either. Here Leslie is trying to be turn over a new leaf and be positive, but it's hard when Ann can be such a Debbie Downer. Not that Ann isn't the most helpful, noble, and prettiest person in the world or anything, but she is awfully hung up on everyone liking her all the time. 

At JJ's Diner, Leslie and Ann find April sitting alone at a booth and waiting patiently for them while scribbling something on a napkin. She and Ann sit together on the same side of the booth and April finishes whatever it is she's doing before looking up or even acknowledging them. She looks around as if checking to make sure no one is watching them and then she whispers, "I know your secret, Leslie."

"I don't have secrets. I believe in complete transparency," she whispers back, playing along with whatever April's getting at.

The server comes and Leslie orders waffles. Ann says she needs a minute and April glares at her, "God, your hands are huge."

Ann puts the menu down on the table and looks at it with her hands in her lap.

"Did a guy named Tom hit on you when you went to get your car from the shop?"

She looks up, "Yeah..."

"He probably didn't notice your giant man hands. He's my ex-boyfriend. We still live together though, so I get to hear about all of the women he hits on."

"Your face, Ann," Leslie says to her quickly before she can scrunch up her forehead. "Wrinkles," she reminds her.

April focuses back on Leslie and says, "Pay attention to me, I have good news for you. You can pay attention to Satan later."

"I thought you knew my secret?"

"The two are connected. God." Leslie urges her to go on. She says, "Your scandal wasn't a scandal." Leslie then raises an eyebrow. "There was no embezzling. There was only monumentally terrible record-keeping, which I think you knew. So your epic downward spiral was for absolutely-"

"Ready to order?" the server interrupts.

Ann orders and tries to give the menu to the waitress without raising her hands above the table. Leslie ends up taking Ann's menu and handing it off. April looks at Ann again, but speaks to Leslie, "I guess her giant hands might be good for...things."

"I don't think my hands are that big."

"Yeah, ok. Because thinking really hard will make something reality," she rolls her eyes. "Now to make a long story short, Leslie: you can totally have my job. I'm sure they'll give it to you. Or your old job. I'd rather you take my job though because I want it about as much as I want to contract Ebola."

"I betrayed the beautiful taxpaying voters of Pawnee," Leslie insists.

"Only not really. Rhonda was screwing up paperwork for years and it threw off the entire budget. Now admit you didn't embezzle any money and take my job."

Leslie's waffles arrive and she is legitimately distracted. She doesn't want to think about, much less actually talk about, the scandal. Andy never brought it up, which may have been because he doesn't know what embezzling is. She was lucky they let her resign from her position and didn't charge her. Before she resigned, she wrote a check to the town of Pawnee for the amount supposedly owed. She didn't take the money, but she thought someone else did. To steal from Pawnee, she believed, someone had to be desperate. They had to really need the money to take it from the most perfect town in all of Indiana.

She looks at her golden clouds of deliciousness and reminds herself that this is a new chapter of her life and the chapter of her life with local government is over. It's been over. It was over the day she resigned. It didn't matter if she really betrayed Pawnee or not, Pawnee believed she did. The town she loved turned its back on her. It's time for her to turn her back on Pawnee. First, she will eat her waffles.


	32. Ron Goes To The Farmers' Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He makes a number of observations about people whose lives he is not invested in.

People like to refer to Ron's woodworking items as "one of a kind." This gives them great value and people are then willing to pay top-dollar for his toils. Ron has a booth at the Pawnee Farmers' Market, which takes place every Saturday from May to November. He seldom uses his booth, but people come to Pawnee from distant lands in order to see if he's at his booth. On this particularly fine Saturday, Ron is at his booth. He has brought with him a chair, a small table, and his completed set of kitchen utensils. He sits in the chair in his space. He has no sign. He engages in no advertising. He just sits in the chair he made with the utensils he made on the table he made. He waits. People like to call him an "artisan," but Ron thinks of himself only as a man that works with wood.

A short distance away, at a booth selling various "heirloom" vegetables, Ron sees Ben and Chris. They are in suits, which is the only thing they seem to wear. Ben has his hands in his pockets and he follows Chris. Chris is smiling and talking to everyone. Literally, he seems to be introducing himself to every single person. This seems foolish to Ron, on account of they are trying to overthrow Mayor Meagle. Ben seems worried and rightfully so. "Worry" doesn't appear to be one of Chris' emotions. Worry is also not one of Ron's emotions, but it's because he takes measures to eliminate the need to worry, not because he simply fails to feel it. Worry appears to be one of Ben's most predominant emotions, on the other hand. Ben's dedication to Chris impresses Ron. Ron respects dedicated people, regardless of who or what they are dedicated to.

Tom is also quite dedicated, but Ron maintains his mixed feelings about Tom. Tom's form of dedication is more like beating a dead horse and he's dedicated to nothing in particular. Unfocused dedication is what Tom has. Ron thinks he should have engaged in the betting pool with April about the length of his employment at the mechanic. Tom got a job at the Parks Department. Ron doesn't like this. Tom has become another bureaucrat in an imaginary position that exists for the sake of its own existence. Ron's particular brand of hopelessness dictates that there is nothing he can do about the broken system, so there is no point in trying. Sometimes he thinks it about it though, like now when he is sitting in his booth at the Farmers' Market.

Ron crosses his arms as Tom joins Ben and Chris. He too is wearing a suit. Ron is a bit curious about the mediation. Tom is still alive, so there's that. April has not come over again since the evening they inadvertently came close to discussing feelings. It had not been Ron's intention. He considers apologizing, but he doesn't believe in apologizing unless it is truly warranted. Accidentally speaking briefly of feelings does not warrant an apology. No one was injured or hurt in any way and he hopes that April doesn't expect an apology from him. April isn't at the Farmers' Market. It isn't something April does. He likes to think that April is sitting in her apartment in the dark, sharpening knives. 

Ann and Leslie are in attendance. It's a very nice day and this seems to have drawn out a lot of Pawnee as well as some extra folk. He likes that. He likes when people buy locally. He doesn't like all of the huge corporations with their mass produced items. They skim on quality to produce quantity - this is the opposite of Ron and his "one of a kind" woodwork. Ron scoffs to himself and looks back at Leslie and Ann. Ann carries Leslie's bags as Leslie moves about on her crutches making purchases from every booth. Ron knows that her cast should be coming off soon. He predicts that Ann will continue to carry Leslie's bags even when her hands are free again. This is the type of person that Ann is. Leslie has become the type of person that has her bags carried, but she didn't used to be that type of person.

Ron ponders the news from city hall that reached his ears over the recent days. An apology is going to be issued to Leslie Knope, at least that's what they're saying. The eponymous 'they.' They say a great deal and he doesn't care about most of it. Donna Meagle intends to "do the right thing." He knows it's only for appearances. Everything politicians do is only for appearances. She is no more corrupt and evil than any other politician. Slightly less corrupt and slightly less evil are still corrupt and evil. Ron predicts that Leslie will not take the job back that will be offered her. Leslie Knope is not the Leslie Knope she once was. She's a Leslie that will allow Ann Perkins to carry all of her bags even after her cast comes off. Leslie carried all of Andy's metaphorical bags and the cycle is endless. 

His deep thoughts are interrupted by a man that wants to buy his table. He sells the man his table, accepting cash only. He sits back down in his chair and places the utensil set next to him then crosses his arms and continues his observations. Tom, Ben, and Chris are heading in his direction. He makes no effort to acknowledge nor ignore them.

"Let's go into business together," Tom says to him with that big, idiotic smiles of his.

"Oh, you're interested in taking the time to craft beautiful and functional household items from wood with your hands?" Ron will humor him briefly. 

"No, of course not!" 

Of course not, Ron thinks.

Tom then says, "I want to help _you_ sell _your_  beautiful and functional handcrafted products."

"Do I look like I need help?" he keeps his arms crossed and stares at Tom.

"You can reach a greater audience if you just let me handle the business side of things."

"My current audience is great enough. Thank you, Tom."

"Imagine the money you could make!"

"You're the one that needs money, Tom."

"Wow! What intricate designs on that chair, Ron Swanson!" Chris exclaims. He bends down and begins stroking one of the legs.

"Thank you, Chris. Are you interested in buying my chair?"

He stands back up and smiles, "Where will you sit if I buy your chair?"

"I'll stand."

"We don't need a chair," Ben tells him.

"I believe you're correct about that, Ben Wyatt, but I can still admire the fine craftsmanship."

A woman approaches and buys the chair. Ron then stands with his arms crossed in the space designated as his booth. Tom goes silent and points across the lot. Ron and the other two men follow his pointing. He seems to be pointing to Ann. Ron raises and eyebrow.

"That's her!"

"Who?" asks Ben, squinting and unable to figure out who he's pointing to.

"I believe he's pointing at Ann Perkins," Chris tells him.

"Yes! Ann Perkins! Beautiful goddess of love!"

The beautiful goddess of love is carrying bags upon bags of produce. 

"Ann Perkins is not available," Chris says to Tom and pats him on the shoulder, smiling.

"You two really know everything about everyone, don't you?" Ron questions, his curiosity acting up again.

"It's our job," Ben tells him with a nod.

Tom is unaffected by the news. He believes he can, in fact, "steal" Ann from Leslie. His confidence is unending and not based on anything in reality. He is by far the most delusional man in all of Pawnee. The three men in suits move along and a moment later to continue perusing other booths of goods. Ron sells his set of kitchen utensils soon after. Having sold his entire stock, he walks to JJ's Diner. He has nothing to clean up, no overhead costs, and only profits. He is going to use some of those profits to break his egg record at JJ's and then buy a bottle of whiskey to drink on his porch while he only sits in one of his chairs. He frowns, thinking about his two chairs and his only being one man. Also, if he were two men he could craft double the stunning artisan wood pieces. He could also serenade himself with sweet, sweet jazz music as he worked. There would be many benefits to two Ron Swansons.


	33. Mayor Meagle Makes An Announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And she recruits April as her personal detective.

The weird spooky girl that works in the Parks Department, April, points to the bronze-dipped penis-shaped potato that Donna now keeps on her desk. She says, "That's a dick-tator, did you figure that out? Dictator. Get it?"

Donna allows the brand new information to process and she laughs loudly, leaning back in her Iron Throne desk chair. "That is clever! How did you figure that out?"

"I figured it out when you were on  _Ya Heard?"_ she tells her.

"Why didn't you call in? This is knowledge I could have used! I can still use it now, girl, but damn!" Donna is still chuckling periodically between words. She knew that in time she would think the dick-shaped potato was funny. It took a bit longer than she thought it would and it was much funnier since it was a dick-tator. 

April shrugs, "Sorry. I actually came to ask you-"

"Would you like a job?" Donna asks her.

"I have a job that I don't want, which is why I'm-"

"I need a detective!"

"But I'm-"

"You're hired! I hope you like overtime!" Donna says excitedly. April is more competent than Pawnee's actual detectives. Donna then has another idea, "And you know what else I need?"

"No..." April is shifting her weight back and forth on her feet and her hands are behind her back. She's looking down at her toes. Donna wonders why everyone in the Parks Department is so scared of her. Rhonda even wept when Donna threatened to have April come in to talk to him again after mistaking him for the Mayor Menace.

"I need a personal assistant-"

April finally manages to cut Donna off, "Oh God, no. Please, your majesty...your mayor-sty..."

"Mayorsty, I like that too." Then she says, "I want my personal assistant to be that boyfriend of yours, Tom. There's some sort of rule about fraternizing anyway and you can't date someone under you, so we can just renegotiate his contract and he can be my personal assistant. We both watch all the same TV shows."

"He's not my-" 

Donna doesn't have time for technicalities. She's on her way to another interview with Perd Hapley. It's time to make right the great wronging of Leslie Knope and it's time to put an end to the Mayor Menace. As if on cue, her secretary knocks on the door and says, "Mr. Hapley is here."

"I'll see you at 5 o'clock sharp, Ms. Ludgate! I want you to get started right away!" She then shoes the girl out of her office and welcomes Perd with open arms. His camera crew follows him and they set up to film Donna at her desk.

"You look great today, Donna. It's really great how great you look," Perd says and straightens out his tie, looking at his reflection on her computer screen. "That color looks great on you."

"Why thank you, Perd," she looks herself over and is also pleased. She's wearing a turquoise cardigan with a bright pink floral-print dress and she looks like the most fun, sassy mayor in the midwest. She's feeling good. There have been no attacks in a while and she just hired a brand new detective to put on the case. She's going to get April a badge and everything because she can do that since she's the mayor. She sits back down on her throne and Perd's hair and make-up people tend to her.

Perd pulls up a chair next to her and he too sits behind her desk. Some of his other set decorator people, rearrange the things on her desk in front of them. Someone else adjusts the curtains behind them. She's confident in Perd's people. This is going to be the best damn special bulletin that has ever aired in Pawnee. 

"Hi, it's me, Perd Hapley," Perd begins when the film starts rolling. "This is a special news bulletin, which is why it's interrupting your regularly scheduled program. We're sorry about the interruption. 'We' is myself and Mayor Donna Meagle, Pawnee's very own mayor."

Donna smiles, "Greetings, Pawnee. Several years ago one of our most dedicated public servants resigned from her position in the Department of Parks and Recreation. Although I was not your mayor at the time, I have been burdened by city hall's great loss. We all believed that the Betrayer, Leslie Knope, betrayed us all..." Listening to Perd talk for too long makes his way of speaking contagious and she winces, smiles quickly and goes on, "It has come to light in recent weeks that this was a terrible oversight by the previous administration. Leslie Knope never stole money from the Parks Department and never cooked the books to cover it up. The true culprit has been given a very hard slap on the wrist."

Perd nods the entire time she speaks then looks at the camera, "We apologize to Leslie Knope for all of Pawnee and Pawnee, you need to apologize to her as well."

"I would like to publicly offer Leslie her old job back, right here in city hall," Donna says. "As a gesture for the great wrongdoing that occurred." Both them smile and "Eye of the Tiger" begins to play. They continue smiling at the camera and at each other, for the length of the song. Donna wishes she had picked a shorter song.

"And now, Mayor Meagle, would also like to address the foul creature in our midst that has become known as the Mayor Menace," Perd says once the song is over.

Donna's face hurts from all of the smiling. "The person or persons that have been terrorizing our idyllic town will be brought to justice by the end of this week. I promise this to you, Pawnee. I've hired a new special agent who is already on the case. Soon, we will all be able to rest easy again with our streets and fortune cookies from Wang Express safe. Remember, if you have any information tweet it straight to me at @UrOverlordDonna and use the hashtag #MayorMenace."

"Thank you, and you heard all of this exciting news here first, from me and straight from the horse's mouth. Well, from Donna Meagle's mouth. Li'l Sebastian couldn't join us today."

Donna had great dreams for this special bulletin. It would include a dramatic fade in and fade out, and her Twitter name and hashtag would scroll along the bottom of the screen like ticker tape. It will be beautiful, a work of art for sure. The lights made her a little sweaty and she fans herself with a file folder that had been placed on her desk for appearances during filming. Something slides out of the folder and onto the floor. She bends down to pick it up and sees that it's a photograph. A Polaroid. How quaint, she thinks. 

She doesn't think it quaint anymore when she realizes what it's a picture of. She stands up, sending the Iron Throne rolling backwards and hitting the window sill. She shouts, "Who put this folder on my desk?! Where did it come from?! Someone bring me April Ludgate! Now! Now! Now!"


	34. The Confusion Of Ann Perkins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ann goes to the Snakehole.

Getting excited about anything is one of the best ways to get Ann's stomach good and upset. She can't help but be a little excited that Leslie's cast is coming off though. She's a little excited to do all of the things that Leslie talks about doing once her cast is off - like going to Ladies' Night at the Snakehole, which happens to be tonight. They're going to celebrate Leslie's mobility. Ann is still going to do nice things for Leslie, but she's looking forward to not doing everything for Leslie all the time. She hurt her back at the Farmers' Market carrying all of Leslie's produce, but it's feeling better now.

She's waiting in the hall at the hospital. Leslie wants to do some big unveiling of her legs or something. She keeps calling it her "new leg." So she makes Ann wait in the hall. Ann heard the saw stop buzzing several minutes before. Ann's stomach lurches slightly with some more mild excitement that she can't seem to get under control. Soon, Leslie burst through the door. She does a brief, awkward dance in the hall (which looks like an attempt at twerking) in front of Ann then extends her arms and nearly barrels Ann over with a hug.

"Leslie Knope has two legs again!" she says to her.

"You always had two legs," Ann reminds her with a laugh.

"I have a new leg!" Leslie says and squeezes her tightly. Very tightly.

Unable to breathe well, Ann tries to pry her off and she says, "It's the same leg."

"Oh, you're no fun sometimes, Ann," Leslie says and releases her grip. "Will you drop me off at JJ's? I just got a text from April. She wants to get lunch and try to talk me into taking her job. I need some celebratory waffles."

"Why don't you take it?" Ann asks her, referring to April's job. Ann has never met a person that so desperately wanted to be fired. Ann hates her job, but being fired would make her feel really, really bad.

"We've been over this, you forgetful, dopey sunflower."

They have been over it, but Ann is confused. She doesn't understand why Leslie refused her old job and is now refusing a job that would be a step up from her old job. The Parks Department, Pawnee government in general, had been everything to Leslie. She had wanted her job back for years and then when she can get it back, she no longer wants it. She keeps saying nonsense about a new chapter in her life, but Ann doesn't see why the new chapter can't include something that was so important in a previous chapter. It would be like Ann being offered a nursing job and turning it down even though she wants it because now she's a lawyer. At least that's what Ann felt like it was like. But what did Ann know?

She sighs as they head out to her car. She just wants Leslie to be happy and she was sure that being involved in local government again would make her really happy. It would make her happier than being a dental hygienist, surely. Ann has never met a happy dental hygienist, probably because mouths are disgusting. Ann knew a lot about settling for second best too, and being a dental hygienist was certainly that for Leslie. Unlike Ann, Leslie was being give a chance to return to her first choice. She just didn't get it. Out of habit she opened the passenger door for Leslie then she laughed at herself half-halfheartedly.

"Ann, you are such a silly, ritualistic tropical bird," Leslie says as she gets into the car. 

Ann decides to change the subject and she says, "So April totally hates me."

"She does not," Leslie denies, like always.

"The last time she saw me she called me 'Hellspawn-Ann' and threw holy water on me. Where did she even get holy water?"

"Oh, she was just joking. She's full of jokes is all."

"She doesn't say things like that about you," Ann says. She tries to keep her tone light. She doesn't want to seem sensitive or anything because then Leslie will call her something like 'a delicate cow made of tissue paper' or 'a beautiful ice sculpture of an angel melting on the sidewalk.' 

"She likes you just fine," Leslie insists and reaches over to give her hand a squeeze on the steering wheel. "Have fun at work and tonight we'll go to the Snakehole! Two for one drinks for ladies, lady!"

Ann sighs and forces a smile. Her stomach is churning  _and_ gnawing as Leslie gets out and goes into JJ's. She then drives to her office. When she walks in the receptionist says to her, "You're Ann Perkins, right?"

She nods, unsure. She's sure she's Ann Perkins, but she's not sure why the receptionist cares. The woman flops a bunch of flowers onto the counter and says, "These came for you."

"Oh...thanks." Her first thought is that Leslie had arranged their delivery, but she picks them up and looks at the card attached as she walks down the hall toward her office.

_Meet me tonight at The Snakehole Lounge, Beautiful Love Goddess Ann._

_Sincerely,  
_ _Doctor Tom Haverford, M.D. and Ph.D. in Lovin' Beautiful Women_

Her stomach roils and she bangs her door into her desk as she enters. She sits down and thinks that perhaps going to the Snakehole isn't the best idea. She's already planning on going, but this bizarre, little man named Tom will very likely think she's there to meet him as his note suggests. Leslie will be with her though, so that should help, she thinks. As if on cue, her cellphone buzzes and she sees that Leslie is calling her. She feels a bit better until she picks up.

Leslie immediately says, "April is coming with us to the Snakehole tonight and she's going to take me to see Andy today. Can you pick up dinner from Wang Express?"

"Um, yeah," she responds before the rest of what Leslie says even registers in her brain.

"Ok. Thanks. Love you, Ann. You're a perfectly symmetrical peanut-butter cookie." And then she hangs up.

Ann rubs her stomach and begins queuing up an episode of  _Law & Order_ on her computer. She's no longer very excited about Ladies' Night and she can hear April calling her Man Perkins already in her spiteful monotone. She doesn't care much about Leslie going to visit Andy. She can't stop hearing April's voice and all of the possible insults that can and probably will be thrown at her between Leslie's weird compliments. She's also going to be hit on by Tom. She's going to be bombarded from all directions by things that will make her confused. Thinking about future confusion makes her confused in the present and her guts feel very unhappy.

She pops an antacid into her mouth and the familiar  _chung chung_ of the ripped-from-the-headlines law drama gets her attention. She missed the whole opening scene of misdirection and crime because she was thinking about April. The good news is that it looks like a procedural episode - her favorite. She especially likes the ones with ambiguous endings.

When they get to the Snakehole Lounge that night, the line is wrapped around the building. Leslie takes Ann by the wrist and drags her along behind her. They head for the front of the line, they go straight for the huge, powerful bouncer.

"Leslie Knope! Long time, no see!" He greats her and claps her on the back. His hand is the size of her head and she nearly falls to the ground from the impact. Leslie introduces Ann and she touches her cheek very gently, but strangely. His hand is very soft and he then lets them pass freely into the sickest nightclub in Pawnee.

The lighting inside is terrible and Ann can barely see. It's good that Leslie seems to know how to navigate the place with very limited vision. They weave through people and finally find themselves at the very poorly lit bar. April materializes next to Ann like a mean ghost. Leslie orders drinks for all of them. Six Sweetums Fizzes. Two for each of them. April guzzles hers down and Ann waits patiently for her to say something about her not being a lady. But she doesn't. Instead, she orders a Pawnee Sunrise and suggests they all go sit down. Leslie links her arm with Ann's at the elbow and begins dragging her again. She struggles to carry both of her drinks, but she manages, by sipping on them alternately so not to spill them.

Once they're all seated around a tiny table in a dark corner (but really the whole place is dark), April says to Ann, "You won't get away with two for one drinks for much longer. I've spread the word that you're actually a man. You won't fool anyone. Not even with all of that clown make-up on and in the shitty lighting."

Ann ignores the comment. She's prepared for it and the drinks are helping with her conglomeration of emotions. She says, "Tom, your ex or whatever, sent me flowers at work today. He's going to be here tonight."

"He's here every night except when he goes to The Glitter Factory," she tells her. "Listen, he mistakes enthusiasm in bed for sexual prowess, so don't give in to his advances."

This was sort of a nice thing for April to say to her, so Ann responds with, "I wasn't planning on it, but thanks." She then adds, "Leslie and I are-"

"Lesbo-lovers, I know. It makes Leslie way cooler, but it just makes you look desperate."

And there was the April Ludgate that Ann had come to know! Leslie didn't seem to hear any of their exchange and she says loudly, "I'm going to go dance on my new leg!"

"I need to have a few more drinks before I dance!" Ann tries to shout at her over the music, but she isn't sure if Leslie heard her or not.

Once Leslie disappears into the shadows, April scoots closer to her and drapes an arm across her shoulders, "I like Leslie. She's like a cool mom. If you do anything to hurt my stand-in cool mom, I will rip your throat out and make you eat it."

Ann pulls away from her a bit and looks at her, "You'll make me eat my own throat?"

April nods and then ruffles Ann's hair, while maintaining the most serious face that Ann has ever seen.  

"Is that why you're so mean to me? You're just being protective of Leslie?"

"I'm mean to you because you're a man dressed as a woman dressed as a clown," she says to her quickly and then flags down a waitress. "This dude and I want to share a Medusa's Revenge."

"Two for one?" the young girl questions.

"Of course." The two of them then sit in silence, drinking their respective drinks, until the waitress returns with two huge, multi-strawed monstrosities. Ann reaches for one of them and April swats her hand. "We're sharing. Do you know what sharing means? Jesus Christ. How are you dating Leslie without understanding this basic kindergarten concept?"

Ann ignores her and finishes both of her Sweetums Fizzes. She can smell the rum wafting from the ginormous new drinks. This seems to amuse April. She nearly smiles and then pulls the first of the giant drinks between them for sharing.

"How many straws can you handle?" she asks Ann and for some reason it sounds really dirty.

Ann feels her face flush and she feels stupid. She tries to answer confidently, "Half."

April divides the straws up and they both lean forward to commence in this drinking extravaganza. Ann is starting to feel a little competitive as her two Sweetums Fizzes begin to take effect. One gave her a little burst of confidence, but two have made her want to drink this entire Medusa's Revenge right out from under the mean girl.

"Hey, ladies!" Tom says seductively and then, "Oh, I didn't realize it was you...uh, April...hi. It's so damn dark in here. Ann Perkins, is that you?"

"Hi, Tom," she says, unamused. This makes April legitimately laugh.

Tom sits down with them, "I knew you'd come for me. Hi."


	35. A Weird Thing Happens To April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course it happens at the Snakehole.

April believes she possesses a number of skills. Most of them aren't terribly useful skills, but they are amusing. One her many skills is an ability to make absolutely anything sound vulgar. She uses the most sultry voice she can muster to ask Ann, "How many straws can you handle?"

It's stupid dark in the Snakehole, but she sees Ann blush in the flash of a strobe and knows she was successful. She isn't sure what to make of Ann, but Leslie seems to like Ann and Tom likes Ann, so maybe she possesses some redeeming quality? She answers forcefully, "Half."

She divides up the straws of their first Medusa's Revenge and they get ready to drink themselves into glorious stupors when they're interrupted by Tom's awful voice, "Hey, ladies!" he says seductively and April knows that he thinks she's some other girl. He recovers, noticing, "Oh, I didn't realize it was you...uh, April...hi. It's so damn dark in here." Then he asks, "Ann Perkins, is that you?"

"Hi, Tom," she says, sounding really annoyed. This is an appropriate reaction to Tom Haverford and April laughs. Ann isn't completely stupid.

Tom sits down and ignored April completely. He says to Ann, "I knew you'd come for me. Hi."

"She's here with Leslie, Tom." She wants Tom to go away. He always ruins all of her fun. "She was planning on coming with Leslie before you sent her any stupid flowers."

"Aw, how nice of you..." Ann says with eight straws in her mouth, drinking the Medusa's Revenge without her.

April glares and then says, "You don't want to date her. She's actually a man. Look at the size of her hands. Now go hit on someone else before I punch you in the face."

Tom frowns and gets up, he says to Ann, "I like when the ladies play hard to get. It's a challenge. I like a good challenge once in a while."

"Tom, I will stab you in the fucking eye," April growls. He yelps and then disappears. At last, April can enjoy her drink, which Ann is casually demolishing and looking pleased about it. "Did you forget what sharing was again?"

Ann pauses in her drinking and says, "Thanks for getting rid of him."

"I didn't get rid of him for you."

She shrugs, "Thanks anyway." Then she hunkers back down to her straws and continues drinking.

April attempts to catch up, but after just a few seconds they've reached the bottom of the giant cup and their many straws are all just sucking air. She pulls the second drink between them and hands Ann eight straws again. When Ann reaches for the straws, she pulls them away and says, "Can your old crone liver handle this much alcohol?"

"Can your feeble child liver?"

She smirks and hands April her straws. Before beginning, she wants to get the last word in and says, "I hope you don't puke on me."

Ann scoffs and says, "Ok. Go."

Their impromptu drinking race concludes very quickly and April is unsure how to determine the winner. Perhaps they would have needed to drink one Medusa's Revenge each. She hiccups and is annoyed because it's such a stereotypical drunk thing to happen. Ann leans back in her chair and folds her hands across her stomach, looking pleased. April eyes her and tries to hold her breath, her hiccups jarring her every so often and interrupting her attempts to glare at the other woman. 

"Next round on me? Do you need some water, April?"

April groans and doesn't care for Ann's tone. She doesn't care for Ann's tone because it's amusing her. Her main goal when meeting most new people is not to be amused by them, but only to be amused by her own awful treatment of them. Ann has taken her strings of insults like a champ and now Ann is drunk. April is sort of feeling drunk too.

"Hey," the next thing April knows is that Ann is snapping her fingers in front of her face. "Are you even old enough to drink? Am I sitting here drinking with a minor?'

"God, yes. I'm old enough," she responds, trying to sound as annoyed as possible. She looks over at Ann and tries really hard to glare.

Ann laughs, which is unacceptable. April's head feels fuzzy, but a good fuzzy. It's not good enough though to counter the fact that she feels Ann is being more witty than she is. Alcohol seems to legit be liquid courage for Ann Perkins and April doesn't like it because the alcohol is not performing similarly for her tonight. The waitress re-emerges and takes away the empty Medusa's Revenge cups.

"What do you want?" Ann asks her.

"Schrempf Cocktail," she answers.

"Two of whatever that is," Ann says with a pleasant smile. She says to April, "How's Andy doing? Leslie said you took her to visit him today."

"I wasn't there to see Andy. I wanted to meet more hardened criminals to start networking."

Ann laughs at her again and says, "Leslie was right. You are full of jokes."

"I'm serious though," she says and makes what she thinks is a serious face. Ann keeps laughing and she feels that her face has missed the mark. She starts to feel a little dismayed that she's not getting the responses she's supposed to be getting. Maybe it's because Ann is drunk? Whatever. Her Schrempf Cocktail is deposited in front of her and she will drink it and no longer care about stupid Ann.

"This is awful," Ann says, drinking from the curly straw and making a very stern face.

"You're awful," April retorts. "What do you like to drink? You're an old hag so I'm sure you like stupid old lady drinks."

"I usually drink wine," she tells her.

"Ugh." April actually doesn't mind wine, but she pretends to be repulsed for sake of keeping up appearances. She watches as Ann still drinks the drink she supposedly doesn't like. 

She asks out of the blue, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" she's perfectly unaware she's been looking at Ann in any particular way. She thought she was maintaining a neutral expression, but apparently she's lost control of her face. She doesn't feel all that drunk. It's not like Ron's decades-old, one million proof bourbon. She doesn't know what's going on. It's as if she's lost all of her superhuman powers suddenly. She's been neutralized! This is awful!

"I don't know," Ann says, making the confused face that Leslie reprimands her for. "You're just looking at me like...with adoration - I don't know."

"Adoration?!" she yells, repulsed. 

"I don't know! I'm sorry! Don't be mad!" Ann straight-up freaks out and starts babbling, apologetically.

April just watches her. Certainly not with adoration. At best, she is merely curious. Curiosity is a totally acceptable feelings. It's even a feeling that Ron finds acceptable. She then says to Ann, "Are you drunk enough to dance yet?"

"Huh?"

"Dance?!" she asks her louder.

"You're asking me to dance?!" she questions.

The DJ tonight must've bumped the volume with their elbow because it has become unbearably loud. April leans over and says, "Yes! I am asking you to dance! Are you drunk enough to dance?!"

"There's Leslie!" Ann says and points, apparently not hearing April still.

She looks and sees Leslie dancing her way from the dance floor and back toward their table. The has a Sweetums Fizz in each hand and looks incredibly excited to be alive. She comes over and sits her drinks on the table then says, "Watch those, April! Don't let anyone slip me a mickey!" Then to Ann, "Dance with me, Ann!"

A little disappointed, April nods and continues drinking her Schrempf Cocktail. She watches them leave and feels weird. The weird is in addition to the drunk. She was sort of almost enjoying Ann's company a little and is a little bummed she's gone now. She's pretty sure the two of them will be back on account of their drinks are here. She wants to talk to Ron. She's not entirely sure what about, but she wants to tell Ron about Ann. What about Ann? She doesn't know.

The Schrempf Cocktail seems to last forever and Ann is right, it tastes pretty terrible. It's just Jagermeister with a novelty straw. She has no intention of ever conceding to Ann about being right, but she does briefly acknowledge it in her own mind. She looks at the throngs of people on the dance floor, which is probably the most poorly lit part of the club. She gets an occasional glimpse of her two friends. Rather, her friend Leslie and Leslie's crone of a girlfriend, Satan. Maybe Satan will dance with her later. Why does she want to dance with her? What is wrong? Is she sick? Does she have a fever?

April touches her head and can't tell. She can never tell by touching her own head if she has a fever or not. She's pretty sure that it doesn't work. Ann is sort of pretty in certain dim lighting situations, but she couldn't consider her to be a "perfect angel" or "beautiful, sparkling cactus anus" or any of the other nonsense that Leslie is always saying. 

"Ew," April says aloud, thinking about all of the bizarro terms of endearment that Leslie uses to describe the lame crone of a woman. She finishes off her drink. Maybe it was this combination of assorted alcohols that has caused this minor malfunction? Liquor before beer...beer before liquor. Maybe she should have started with the Pawnee Sunrise, then had the Medusa's Revenge, and ended with the Sweetums Fizzes. Maybe skipped the Schrempf Cocktail. 

She's so absorbed in trying to justify her weird feeling with something she consumed that she doesn't even notice when Leslie and Ann have come back to the table.

"Hey," Ann says to her and she looks up from staring at the moisture rings on the table. Ann puts out her hand, "Dance?"

"Nah. I think I'm gonna go. I might puke on your shoes. Although this would be extremely funny to me, I'd rather not. At least not tonight."

Ann frowns and says, "Sorry about your feeble child liver."

April smirks at her and leaves. She does't feel like hurling exactly. She just feels weird. Definitely a bad combination of drinks, she decides. 


	36. Ben And Chris Get To Phase Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's an exciting phase.

"I believe it's time to enter the Destruction Phase, Ben Wyatt."

Ben Wyatt looks up and his expression is one of worry. He mutters, "Destruction Phase?"

"Yes, I made it up just now," Chris Traeger says.

"It sounds a little...violent, don't you think?"

"Have you ever heard of a peaceful revolution?"

"Well...yes," he says. 

"There can be no peace until the corrupt government falls!" he shouts with enthusiasm, fist in the air. 

"Chris, maybe we should just stop and go home?"

Chris Traeger thinks about Ben Wyatt's words and says, still with a smile, "I didn't think you were a quitter."

"I'm not, I just..." his voice trails off and turns into a sigh. He rubs his face with the palms of his hands and looks exhausted when he pulls them away. "I just don't think this is working. I think we need to go about this differently is all."

"Yes, I agree. That's what the fourth phase is for and that's why we're entering it now."

"Chris," he says dejectedly. "If Donna steps down then she'll just be replaced by someone else just like her. We'll be stuck in Pawnee forever in an endless cycle of deposing people you think are evil dictators in training." As he goes on, he speaks less and less timidly.

Surprised by this sudden passion, Chris Traeger smiles confusedly. He walks over and sits next to Ben Wyatt on the edge of the bed. He asks him, "Do you not like Pawnee?"

"No, this isn't about Pawnee."

"But you don't want to be stuck here."

"No," he insists. "Metaphorically. Metaphorical Pawnee."

"I don't know what you mean. I like Pawnee. I like the people here."

Ben Wyatt sighs again and says, "Nevermind. Tell me about the Destruction Phase."

"We confront Mayor Donna Meagle," he speaks with great enthusiasm once again. "And we speak to her directly. We demand she leave the mayoral office and then we replace her with a leader of our own choosing."

"That isn't how mayors work. We can't just come into Pawnee and pick someone to be mayor. We don't even live here. We've just been staying at the Glory Ol' which is barely even in Pawnee. If Donna resigns then the next in line is-"

A knock on their door interrupts him. He jumps. Luckily he isn't holding any coffee or else he would have spilled it all over the front of his neatly pressed shirt. He is so nervous lately and Chris Traeger doesn't understand why because everything is going perfectly swimmingly and has been since they arrived in Pawnee. Their inside woman, April, is not even more inside. She is basically the right hand of Mayor Meagle. She has been made into an honorary detective and has been causing varying degrees of chaos in city hall, while diverting attention from him and Ben Wyatt.

He opens the door and says, "What can we do for you, Tom Haverford?"

"Ann Perkins," Tom Haverford says. 

Chris Traeger cocks his head to the side and Ben Wyatt simply looks dumbfounded. They were in the middle of what felt like a somewhat important conversation, but there's always time for friends. Especially friends in need. He enters, dragging his feet and hanging his head. He flops down face-first on the bed behind Ben Wyatt. The latter looks back over his shoulder and says, "What about Ann? Are you still having delusions about your chances with her?"

Tom Haverford makes a whining sound and then says into the mattress, "Yes." He raises his head and asks, "What were you guys saying about deposing of Mayor Meagle? The walls here are paper-thin and I heard you talking as I came up the stairs.

Ben Wyatt grows very pale, very quickly and looks utterly panicked. Chris Traeger half-smiles and then locks the door. This is unfortunate. Tom Haverford must be kept quiet. With the new information about the poor construction of the Glory Ol' it's going to be difficult to quietly keep Tom Haverford quiet. This is also unfortunate.


	37. Only One Person Actually Misses Tom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who it is.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Donna worriedly asks April when she enters her office.

"I'm single," she responds. Donna sort of remembers April tellings her that she and Tom aren't an item, but she can't remember for sure. The young woman goes on, "I haven't seen Tom in days. I figure he went home with a stripper and got lost in her bosom." She shrugs. "Tom is really bad at jobs in general. I'm surprised it took him this long to stop showing up."

"Tom is a vital member of my support staff," she tells her and gets up from her desk. Her bottom lip quivers as she says, "I think the Mayor Menace has taken him. I need an article of his clothing for the bloodhounds to track him by scent."

"Uh, ok. I guess I can get some of his underwear or something from my apartment."

"Thank you, April. You're a lifesaver. Do that now."

"I'm working..." she says shyly. Again, Donna wonders why she is such a feared city employee.

"Anything I tell you to do counts as work and I overrule all other instructions because I'm the mayor," Donna informs her of these important facts.

"I guess I'll be back in a little while then," she starts out.

Donna has an idea, "Wait." April stops and waits, as instructed. "I'll give you a ride," the mayor says. "Then I want to take you somewhere and show you something. After that, we'll go to the police station to give Tom's underwear to the dog-handling person."

"I get to ride in your car?"

"Darn skippy," she snatches up her purse. She swings it at her side and marches past April, "Follow me!"

April follows. It's almost as if the girl is afraid of her. Donna thinks this is ridiculous. She is the most down-to-earth mayor in the world. So what if she wants to unite every nation on Earth under the rule of her mighty fist? So what if she wants her law to be the law of all the land? There's no damn reason for anyone to be afraid of her. She doesn't know what to do about it at the moment and she's worried about Tom. She sends April into her apartment and tells her she needs to find an article of clothing that has a lot of Tom smell on it, so it needs to be something dirty. April is visibly repulsed by the thought of going through his laundry and looks a little green when she gets out of Donna's Benz.

She comes back a few minutes later with a black sock balled up in a plastic bag. She's holding the bag with a pair of metal tongs, out in front of her. Donna enjoys melodrama and laughs riotously. She gets herself under control before heading to her historic mansion. She leads April inside and up to the study, her thinking room, the room where she has gathered all of the evidence. She unlocks the door with a rusty old key and allows April to enter. She turns on the TV to create some light since the thick curtains are drawn and blocking out the sun. 

"Oh, man. I've always wanted to do something like this," April says, honestly. She seems somewhat interested instead of apathetic. She starts making her way around the room, looking at the linked pieces of evidence all over the walls. 

"I figure you need to take a look at everything I've been working on. Consider this to be us comparing notes, detective."

The two most recent additions to her evidence wall are the disturbing Polaroid and a scrap of paper that says: TOM HAVERFORD MISSING. She looks once more at the Polaroid, but only for a second. She's can't bear to look at it for very long because she doesn't want it burned into her mind. 

"I think the Polaroid might be connected to Tom's kidnapping," she tells April. "I know the picture was given to me well before Tom vanished, but I think it was...foreshadowing!"

April looks closely at the picture and says nothing for some time. Her arms hang limp at her sides. She's entranced by the horror. It's like a train wreck.

"Look away, April. Look away," Donna pleads. "You can come back tonight and help me research. We need to get Tom's sock to the bloodhound."

She turns and asks, pointing to the picture, "So did anyone figure out if that's Rhonda in a clown suit or John Wayne Gacy?"

"No one knows, but I'm afraid Tom's dead body is in someone's crawlspace."

April looks at her quizzically for a few seconds before asking, "If, hypothetically, someone were to pull a gun on Tom, would you consider diving on top of him to save his life?"

"Oh, hell no."


	38. Ron Knows Everything That Happens In Pawnee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But he's not invested.

When Ron hears someone rapping on his door, he freezes. He holds very still. He hopes it was in his mind. He would rather be going insane than to find that he has a visitor. He is in his kitchen, wearing his man-apron, standing over a large bubbling pot of stew containing nine different meats. The knocking comes again and a voice.

"It's Lenore! Rapping on your chamber door! Nevermore and whatever!" Ron doesn't know anyone named Lenore - it's April. She then adds, "Let me in, Ron. Poe is a hack and I can only quote so much bullshit as I knock. I know you're home, I smell meat cooking."

He gives his stew a stir then rests the ladle in a stone spoon rest that he fashioned himself from a piece of marble that he found on a hike. He opens the door and allows her to come inside. She tells him which route she took on the way and he approves. Then he asks, "What brings you to my cabin, Ludgate?"

"Tom's missing, apparently."

"I didn't kill him for you if that's what you're implying."

"No. I'm just stating facts in case you were unaware."

"I'm aware of everything. I'm also aware you went to Rhonda's house and you got a Polaroid of him dressed as a clown from his insanely attractive wife then slipped it into a file folder being carried by Perd Hapley's production designer. I'm aware that this was above and beyond what was instructed by Chris and Ben." She grins, unsurely. He pats her on the shoulder, indicating that he is pleased, "Way to have initiative."

"Ok, so...a few days ago before I noticed Tom was gone, I left a message for Ben in our secret message location-"

"Under the heart-shaped rock, beneath the fourth bush from the left in front of the barber shop."

She nods, "I checked today and my message was still there, which means Ben didn't pick it up. So then I went to the Glory Ol' and they checked out some days ago."

"Yes," Ron confirms everything she's said. He realizes quickly that she didn't come for his confirmation thanks to her confused expression and he says, "They drove to Indianapolis and took a flight to Vancouver."

"Canada?"

"Mr. Traeger bought three first class tickets, round-trip."

"Soooo..." she sticks her hands in her pockets and says, "It's safe to assume they didn't kill Tom and hide his body in a crawlspace?"

"Correct. I believe they've gone skiing."

"Without telling anyone?"

"Apparently." Ron looks her over. She's fidgeting. "Were you worried about Tom?" He giggles. She looks up at him slowly and her eyes narrow. It makes his soul hurt, so he quiets himself.

"I just need to know these things because I'm playing detective for Donna. I would have been nice for someone to give me a heads up, you know? I thought I was, like, an equal partner in this plot."

He nods and goes into the kitchen. She follows and stands at the threshold. He stirs his stew and asks, "Would you like to talk about feelings?"

"No," she snapped. "I don't have any."

"Bowl of my nine-meat stew?"

"No, I think I'm going to go. I just wanted to see if you knew where Chris and Ben went and if Tom was dead."

"Good because my stew will not reach optimum flavor until tomorrow. It needs to simmer overnight or you'll be eating a slightly inferior stew." April leans against the wall and crosses her arms, making no effort to leave. Ron is fully aware she's there, but he's tending his stew. After he finished he, pulls down two tumblers from his finely crafted cabinets. He fills them with ice and then pours whiskey and hands one to her, saying nothing.

"Can you convince Leslie to come back to the Parks Department?" April asks him casually.

"Why would I do that? How would it benefit me?"

"Interesting you should ask," she begins and looks like she is about to give a great speech. She ends up saying, "Nope. It wouldn't benefit you at all."

"Don't get invested in the affairs of other people, Ludgate. Be responsible-"

"Only for myself. I know, I know."

"If every single person were responsible only for him or herself then the world would be a much better place." He watches her as she looks around absently, looking as if she has something to say and not saying it. He asked if she wanted to talk about feelings. She said no. He would not ask again.

"I'm taking Leslie to see Andy tomorrow," she says absently. It's like she just wants to fill the silence. Ron is fine with silence and doesn't understand the compulsion.

He says back to her, "Leslie has been going to see Andy a lot."

"Yeah. I think she feels like she needs to take care of him. She used to want to take care of all of Pawnee in this great, grand sense, providing government services and whatever, you know? Now she just wants to take care of Andy and she keeps going on about being a dental hygienist, which is probably one of the most repulsive occupations I can think of."

"Sounds like you've become invested in Leslie Knope..." he observes. 

"No," she says without being convincing and then she follows it up with, "Yeah, maybe. She was a well-intentioned government employee is all. Not like Donna. Donna wants to take over the world and rename it the Donna Empire or something." She then confesses, "I don't actually think Donna is an evil dictator. I just don't think she's a benevolent ruler."

Ron nods, understanding. He then confesses, "I knew that Rhonda had been screwing up all of the accounting for the Parks Department when Leslie was blamed."

"You...what?" April actually looks a little taken aback, startled. This is rare for April. "You didn't say anything...to anyone? For all this time?"

"It wasn't my business and didn't affect me."

"I mean, I can understand Rhonda not saying anything because Rhonda is completely incompetent, but..." she doesn't finish. She closes her mouth tightly and just looks at Ron. He can't read her expression exactly. He thinks she might be angry. She finishes her drink then walks past him to put the glass into the sink. Then she turns on her heel and walks out.

"April?" he says, but the only response is his front door closing.


	39. Tom's Triumphant Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He likes skiing. It makes him feel rich.

Tom trundles back into Pawnee, bundled up unseasonably, and struggling to carry a pair of skis. Ben and Chris dropped him off downtown and he said he would be fine to walk back to April's apartment. It turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated. He was very hot and skis are very awkward to carry. He should have bought some luggage in order to pack all of the clothes than Chris bought for him on their impromptu ski trip, which was the coolest thing, ever. He wanted to live-tweet it and there were some crazy awesome photo ops, but Ben accidentally dropped his cellphone into the toilet before they left the Glory Ol'.

So now, Tom is struggling to make it to April's apartment and lots of people are passing him. They're slowing their cars down to look at him, but does anyone want to help Tom Haverford? No. He is a valuable member of the Pawnee community, but like Leslie Knope, Pawnee has turned its back on him. Screw you too, Pawnee.

A car honks and he waddles in a circle to look and see who it is because his puffy coat is too puffy for him to turn his head or his upper body alone. 

Ann's Honda has stopped near the curb. The passenger side window is down and she says, "Tom, what the hell are you doing?"

"Going home," he said. "I went on a ski trip."

"A ski trip?" she repeats, sounding really perplexed, but she always sort of sounds perplexed. She has seemed super-sexy confused every time he's talked to her pretty much.

"Yeah. I went skiing with Ben and Chris."

"Ben and Chris?"

Ann seemed a little dumb, but Tom doesn't like women to be smarter than him. The one time he dated a woman smarter than him it was April and that ended rather poorly. "Yeah, Ben and Chris," he repeats. "Can you give me a ride home? Maybe?"

"Yeah. I'm on my way to work. Do you live far?"

"I live with April."

"I don't know where April lives."

"Oh..." he stands there because he can't really maneuver himself to open the car door. He waits. Ann just looks at him, waiting as well. He then says, "Can you open the door for me?"

She leans over and pulls the handle then gives the door a shove. Tom struggles to grab it before it swings shut again and he then manages to shove his skis into the backseat by slashing them about over Ann's head. He gets in, but he struggles to sit down and his coat is too puffy for him to buckle his seatbelt.

"Is that a Gore-tex coat?" Ann asks.

"Yeah, Chris bought it for me."

"Who are Ben and Chris?"

"The two rich guys that were staying in the Glory Ol'. How do you not know them? They knew who you were. They knew everyone in town."

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye and says, "Tell me where to go."

He directs her to April's and then says, "Hey, you doing anything tonight?"

"No. I mean - yes," she recovers quickly. 

"I need to get a new phone because mine had an accident, but can I have your number?"

"No," she says, flatly. She sounds a lot like April when she talks like that. 

"Well, thanks for the ride," he opens the door and swings his legs out then reaches backwards to grab his skis and he flails them around until he can get them out of the car, but then he can't stand up. Ann gives him a shove and he manages to get onto his feet, but barely. Before he closes the door, he says, "I'm sorry if April's mean to you. I think she's still in love with me and she's hella jealous of our mad chemistry."

She looks confused again and then leaves. It takes Tom about an hour to get up the stairs and inside. He changes into a suit and he goes into work at city hall. Chris and Ben said they took care of his time off request and everything. They said he was good to go. They said the ski trip was a surprise for his birthday because he was so sad about Ann rejecting him. He said they were way early for his birthday. They said it was fine and they took him skiing. It was really early in the ski season as well and there had only been one snowfall, so the skiing wasn't great. Tom still loves skiing. 

When he gets into city hall, he's surprised to see that everyone is surprised to see him. Mayor Meagle runs from her office and scoops him up in her arms.

"Tom! You're alive!" she exclaims.

He gasps for air and then he thinks he passes out for about a minute. When he comes to, there are a bunch of people in a circle around him. He's on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and all of the faces that are looking down at him. He asked, "Why would I not be alive? I only fell down skiing one time and it was on the kiddy slope."

"Skiing?!" Donna says loudly and her face comes toward him. She doesn't seem glad to see him anymore. She says again, "Skiing?!"

"Yeah, Ben and Chris said they talked to you."

"Who are Ben and Chris?" she asks him.

"You know, Ben and Chris," he says. He doesn't understand why no one knows Ben and Chris. Ben and Chris know everyone. He looks around at the faces and asks, "Where's April? April knows Ben and Chris. She introduced me to them."

"I think he's been drugged," Rhonda says. "I've seen this before. When I was in 'Nam."

"You were never in 'Nam, Rhonda. Shut up," Tom says.

"Rhonda might be right for once," Donna looks at everyone else. They all exchange glances above him and there's a murmur of agreement.

"I'll call 911." Rhonda's face disappears.

Donna asks him, "How did you escape your captors? Were there one or two? Where were they keeping you?"

"I went to Whistler Blackcomb...they were keeping me at a ski resort in Canada...I'm so confused right now!" He realizes that this must be how Ann feels constantly. It's pretty terrible. Soon the ambulance comes for him and he is sedated by the paramedics.


	40. Leslie Visits Andy Again And April Invests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But who does April invest in? Dun dun dun.

Leslie doesn't like the look that April has been giving her the whole way to prison. It's judge-y. April usually isn't judge-y. April isn't usually judge-y at all and is, in fact, usually quite the opposite. April hasn't said much, but her eyes are full of judgement like little glowing orbs of judging power. She hasn't said much. She hasn't even bugged Leslie about coming back to work at the Parks Department, which she always mentioned at least three times on the way to prison and then again on the way back.

Leslie decides to bring it up, "Are you not going to ask me to take your job today?"

"Guess not," she says. "You don't want it or you would have taken it already."

"Between you and Ann, I can't catch a break about wanting to be a dental hygienist."

"Ann wants you to go back to work at the Parks Department too?" April questions. She doesn't quite sound like herself, but Leslie can't put her finger on what's different.

"Yeah. I thought you two were working together to double-team me for a while there. Like bullies."

April shifts the subject slightly and asks, "How are the face butthole hygienist classes going anyway?"

"Fine." Leslie is only taking two classes a week. It's going to be a while before she's a dental hygienist. Her two classes are going fine though - this is true.

April grunts and keeps her eyes on the road, but she still has a judge-y expression. Leslie thinks maybe she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, didn't have quite enough coffee, something like that. Maybe she stubbed her toe on the way out the door. The latter can really throw off someone's day. The day before, Leslie stubbed her toe on Ann's coffee table and then couldn't bring herself to go to class. She had to curl up on the couch and watch daytime TV all day.

"Why doesn't Ann come with you anymore?" Andy asks her when he joins them in the visitation room.

"She has work," she tells him. "She's busy."

"Gosh, Andy. Am I not good enough?" April says jokingly.

He shakes his head, "No, no. April, you're cool, but Ann is Leslie's girlfriend and I keep trying to get them to make out."

She laughs, "You're a simple man with simple needs."

"I am!" he says victoriously.

"I'd make out with Ann for you, Andy," she says with her normal sarcastic tone. She then quickly adds, "Or Leslie. Or both of them."

"Stop flirting with me, April. I am technically single, but-"

"Yes, stop flirting with him," Leslie says to her a little confused by how harshly her own words come out and also confused by April, in general.

"Relax, Mom," April says and rolls her eyes.

Andy crosses his arms and has new marker tattoos on his fingers. This time they read: GOOD EATS. He says, "Let me just put this out there, I do _not_ want you two to make out if you're going to call Leslie 'Mom,' ok? That's weird. I don't like that."

"Yeah, I don't really want to make out with her after calling her 'Mom' either," says April. "I made it weird."

"April," Leslie says to her, trying not to sound too mom-ly, "Don't you have some other convicts to go talk to?"

"Fiiiine," she whines and gets up from the table.

Andy looks at Leslie a little confused, but doesn't say anything. He's obviously been working out and she can definitely tell when he crosses his arms. She wants to touch his biceps, but she isn't allowed. They're only permitted one hug at the beginning and one hug at the end of their meeting. Prison is turning Andy into a quality piece of man, she thinks. He's been working out and reading too. He got that rad Pawnee tattoo too. She's not a big fan of his experimental marker tattoos though.

"When you get out, I just want you to know that I'll be there for you," she says to him sincerely. "No matter what."

"Thanks, Leslie. I'm still real sorry you fell in the pit and lost your job and that I got arrested and all of that stuff."

"It's ok. I'm not mad anymore."

Andy also seems a little more thoughtful since he's been in prison. Maybe it's because he hasn't been able to do any drugs. He asks, "Are you mad at April? You seem mad at April."

"No!" she responds adamantly. "Of course not."

"We just joke around. Back when I shined shoes, we would hang out in the basement and dress up in the weird clothes down there. There's some cool stuff. I don't like April like that though. I prefer hot, older women."

"Oh, Andy," she sighs. "I think that was a compliment."

"I'm not as good at giving compliments as you are." Then he says, "Hey, want a snack?"

On the way back to Pawnee, April is still shooting judgement daggers from her eyeballs. 

"April, what's bugging you?" Leslie finally asks her, trying to sound as pleasant and friendly as possible.

"Nothing," she answers, which is exactly what Leslie expected. 

She sighs and takes a guess, "If taking me to see Andy is inconvenient then I can just drive my moped."

"No, I don't mind driving you. It would take you all day to get here and back on your moped."

"Then what is it? I've known you a long time and I can tell the little gears in your head are turning, you clockwork imp."

"Nothing."

"Oh, come on, April."

There is a brief pause before April suddenly says, "Fine. I don't understand why you need to go see Andy so often."

"Someone needs to. He's in prison, April. Prison isn't all fun and games, and making friends, and joining nice gangs."

She's gripping the steering wheel of her car so tightly that her knuckles are turning bright white, "But what does it have to be you, Leslie?"

"Because he's my friend. I've known him for a long time and he was there for me during a bad part of my life, April."

There's another pause and Leslie sees April chewing viciously on her bottom lip. She looks like she's about to explode and that she'd holding back something big, something major. Leslie then asks, "Do you like Andy? Is that what this is about?"

"No, I don't like Andy. I mean, I like Andy, yes. He's fun, but no. Maybe in some alternate universe where he doesn't go to prison, sure. But no." After saying this, she goes silent again. 

"Then what's the problem? Let me help you, April."

"I don't need help."

"You're obviously unhapp-"

"Oh, God. Shut up, Leslie," she cuts her off.

Leslie snaps her mouth shut and looks out of the window. They ride in silence aside from the car radio for a long time. Leslie is the one to speak again and April likely would have remained completely quiet if she hadn't. She says, "Sorry."

"For what? You haven't done anything to me," she responds quietly. More silence again follows. Leslie doesn't know what's going on. Maybe April has some intense PMS. In an unexpected turn of events, April asks, "What about Ann?"

Leslie thinks for a few seconds, "What about her?"

"What you're doing isn't fair."

"What in the world are you talking about? Are you on board the crazy train right now? Get off at the next station and start making sense, please."

"With Andy," she says calmly. "It isn't fair to Ann."

"April, you have no idea what you're talking about."

April looks over at her and actually looks angry. She's seen April be annoyed and seen her be jokingly full of hate, but this new April is...different. She doesn't say anything else. Leslie doesn't say anything else either because she doesn't know what to say until April arrives at her apartment to drop her off. She sighs loudly and speaks slowly, seriously, "I think you need to mind your own business. We're all adults."

Her expression is blank, but then as Leslie starts to get out of the car, she says coldly, "You really are a disgraced former government employee, Leslie. You're a washed-up quitter."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit my 50k words for NaNoWriMo with a mere 20 minutes to spare. I will now rest and then finish this tale soon. I haven't proofread anything. I'm sorry if it's riddled with typos. There was no time!


	41. A Lot Of Stuff Happens In This Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No. Really.

"Ann!" Leslie shouts in her customary, enthusiastic voice.

Ann responds by saying, "Something was going on at city hall again today. There was an ambulance."

Leslie's demeanor changes slightly. She turns back toward the TV with a, "Hm."

"Want to see if anything's on the news? Maybe the Mayor Menace finally actually attacked Mayor Meagle?"

"No."

"Ok..." Ann is a little confused, but she goes to her bedroom to change out of her professional attire and then she goes into the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. She asks, "Need anything while I'm in here?"

"Glass of wine."

"Ok." She looks toward the couch and sees that Leslie's arms are crossed. She begins pouring the wine and asks, "What did you do today? Anything fun?"

"I went to visit Andy and April freaked out."

"What? Why did April freak out?" She joins her on the couch.

Leslie shrugs a little, "She probably went postal and killed everyone at city hall and that's why an ambulance was there."

"Oh, come on. You said she was full of jokes. Are you sure she wasn't just screwing with you?"

Leslie shrugs again. Ann moves a little closer to her, trying to be comforting. She hands her one of the glasses of wine, which she takes reluctantly although she asked for it. She then says, "I'm sure April will be over whatever it was tomorrow. Not that I know her very well, but I don't think she'll stay mad at you."

"I don't know about that," she tells her.

"She said you were like a cool mom and threatened to rip my throat out and make me eat it if I hurt you when we were at the Snakehole."

"You're so nice, Ann...and surprisingly optimistic right now." Leslie looks at her with an expression of surprise then adds, "You're being optimistic about April, which is even weirder - do you have a fever? Do you feel alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She's about as fine as she ever is with her stomach ulcer or whatever's wrong with her gastrointestinal tract. "I was just starting to sort of like April...or...well, I was starting to build up an immunity to how awful she is to me."

"You're so nice, Ann," she says again, this time with a sigh. She follows it with a large gulp of her wine. 

"You're the nicest." She curls up next to her and Leslie isn't terribly receptive. Instead she just stares at the mindless drivel on the TV. Ann decides to drink her wine and also stare absently at the television. No one can be cheerful all the time, she figures. This markedly un-cheerful Leslie reminds her of the Leslie right after Andy was arrested.

~~~~~

April stares absently at her television. She thinks she needs a hobby, but she's too lazy, and can't quite get herself to care enough. Tom is sitting in his recliner, fiddling with his phone. He whines, "April. God. Ugh."

She turns her head slowly to look at him with no expression, "What now?"

"I can't believe you did that to me."

"Did what? I picked you up from the hospital. I should've just left you there in the psych ward where you belong."

"No," he whines more. "You said you didn't know Ben and Chris, but you introduced me to Ben and Chris!"

"I don't know anyone named Ben and Chris," she says. After dropping Leslie off, April went to the secret message rock by the barber shop on a whim. She was hoping that Ben and Chris would be back from their manly skiing adventure with Tom and they'd have an assignment for her. Doing something weird and trivial to freak Donna out would have been a nice distraction from the bullshit with Leslie. Indeed, there was a new message under the message rock, but it did not contain a new assignment. Instead it read:

_Abort mission. We're moving to Bora Bora._

Dudes. So flaky and totally useless. And that's how her fun with Donna came to an end. She supposed she could continue playing weird pranks on Donna, but it was less fun when it was for no reason. With Ben and Chris she could pretend it was for some greater good. The only good thing to come of this is that now she gets to hardcore gaslight Tom. It's pretty rewarding, but she still keeps thinking about Leslie and about Ron too. Leslie and Ron were, like, her only friends.

She looks at Tom and he looks at her, pleading pathetically. She thinks about being friends with him and then decides against it. She didn't even want to be friends with him when they were dating. 

"Why is everyone denying knowing Ben and Chris?!" Tom yells and lets out a loud groan then gets up and stomps into the kitchen. "They introduced themselves to half of Pawnee at the Farmers' Market! They wore suits everyday! They were super-handsome!"

"Two handsome dudes in suits? This is sounding more and more like a fantasy of yours, Tom," April says to him.

"I've got skis! I got a Gore-Tex coat! Chris bought me all this stuff and Ben dropped my phone in the toilet at the Glory Ol'!" Tom is really frustrated.

"I think what happened is that one of your strippers drugged you and took you to the Glory Ol' where you proceeded to hallucinate these things and then you bought yourself skis and a Gore-Tex coat with one of your forty-seven credit cards."

"No!" He pours himself half of a shot of vodka and then two glasses of water to chase it. 

"Getting drunk, I see. That's probably how this started." She turns back to the TV and blocks out the sounds of him gulping down the glasses of water. 

"Do you have Ann's number? I think she's into me. She gave me a ride this morning."

April turns back and sees him pouring another half shot and two more glasses of water. "Gave you a ride where?"

"Here."

"I don't have her number and she's not into you. If I did have her number I wouldn't give it to you. I think she's the lamest person in the world, but she still doesn't deserve to be tortured by you."

He downs his half-shot and then smiles his huge, goofy smile, "That means I'm not the lamest person in the world."

"You're the most annoying person in the world."

"What about Rhonda?" he asks quickly, clearly thinking he's being clever.

"Rhonda is the dumbest person in the world." She goes back to the TV again and asks, "Should you be drinking after they gave you all of those sedatives at the hospital?"

"Aw...shit," he mumbles then asks shrilly, "Am I gonna die, April?!"

"I'm not that lucky," she sighs. She sort of wishes she had just told Ron what was going on instead of trying to make him deduce her thoughts. He might be the most brilliant human she's ever met, but his psychic powers are a little lacking. Maybe she'll apologize to him for being mad about something he chose not to do years before. It seems dumb for her to be mad about it unless he has a time machine stashed somewhere in his cabin.

~~~~~

Ron eats alone in silence. The only sounds are those of nature drifting in from the open window and his own chewing, sometimes the soft clink of her fork against his plate. He has remained at his home since the incident with April. He hasn't even gone to play his saxophone on the streets. The people of Pawnee do not currently deserve his soothing jazz sounds. Or perhaps it's the other way around, perhaps he does not deserve to pay his soothing jazz sounds for the people of Pawnee at the moment. 

He feels as if his energies are imbalanced. His steak doesn't taste nearly as delicious as it should. He has been deeply pondering his inaction and thinking long and hard about April's behavior. He's unsure if an apology is warranted. He isn't sure how exactly to apologize for choosing to not do something years before. He also feels that the entire situation with April could have been avoided if she simply said what she meant instead of attempting to be mysterious. The only person any good at being mysterious is Ron Swanson himself. 

Maybe, just maybe, he will speak with Leslie. He decides that he will sleep on this idea. He isn't sure if he wants her back in the Parks Department. She likes for the government to do a lot of things and he doesn't think the government should do anything - they obviously do not agree on this subject. But he does acknowledge that Leslie is not an evil or bitter civil servant like so many others. At least she wasn't before. She is quite bitter now. If she were to go back to work at city hall, she would likely be less effective. Ron like this. He is still going to sleep on it. 

As he chews his meat that is not quite as delicious as it should be, he wonders if there are any current happenings in Pawnee that he should perhaps consider (how dare he even think it!) becoming involved in. Perhaps not actively involved, but perhaps passively involved...as in not choosing to do nothing. He will need to assess the current state of things, make some more observations, and then weigh his options. Because he exists outside of Pawnee, he sees many things, and knows many things - this is what grants him his sage-like abilities. Perhaps, only perhaps, should be put these powers of his to use for the good of the town. Damn April for making him question his tried and true existence!


	42. The Sweet Sounds Of Ron Swanson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mending fences with the only tolerable woodwind instrument.

Just before April plans to leave work for an early lunch, an interesting sound permeates city hall. The sound is that of a mournful jazz dirge being played on a saxophone. At first, April thinks the doleful song is in her head, but she sees various other city hall government employees responding to it. This reveals to her how poorly constructed the building must obviously be. People are going toward the door and toward the nearest windows, almost desperately. She thinks it's some Pied Piper shit and the entire government of Pawnee is about to led to their deaths off of a cliff like the bunch of damn lemmings that they are. She then feels herself being drawn to the music.

"Oh, shit," she mutters, realizing that she too must be a Pawnee government lemming.

Standing outside wearing sunglasses and his trilby hat is Ron Swanson. He has gathered quite an audience with this particularly depressing jam of his. He seems completely absorbed in the song, showing no sign of stopping, and the song is showing no sign of ending either.

April hangs back in the crowd and crosses her arms. She tries to look as angry as possible, but she's unsure if she's pulling it off. She hasn't been able to control her face lately it seems. As the song draws to its desolate close, the crowd dissipates. Ron thanks several listeners, he shakes some hands. Eventually, only April is left standing on the steps of city hall, arms crossed, trying really hard to look mad.

Ron clears his throat and removes his hat. He holds it to his chest along with his sax and he says, "Ludgate, that song is my apology to you."

"Apology? I thought you didn't believe in apologies," she says, trying really hard to sound mad too, but she doesn't think it comes off correctly. She just sounds confused instead.

"It is an apology for being a bad ally. We are allies, Ludgate. Whether you like it or not. Will you accept my sincere apology?"

She stamps her foot and says, "God, if I have to, I guess so."

He nods to her and puts his had back on. He begins to pack up his saxophone in its case and as he does so, he says to her, "Thank you. I now have other people to apologize to with sorrowful melodies." 

He starts to walk away and April says, "Ron, wait." He stops, doesn't turn. He waits as she commands. "I'm sorry too," she says. "I'm sorry for acting like a stupid delicate flower in a glass box of emotion."

"Don't apologize for feeling feelings. Only apologize for acting stupid as a result of them."

"Yes, that. I guess I apologize for that then."

"Apology accepted," he says without turning around and then he continues on.

April looks around to see if anyone was listening. It's all clear. She wonders where he's going, but she doesn't ask. She doesn't feel like following him. One cannot simply follow Ron Swanson anyway. If you think you're following Ron, he's merely allowing it. So then she walks to JJ's Diner for lunch and calls Leslie on the way to see if she wants some waffles. The waffles will be on her, she tells her. Apology waffles. She's not completely sure what she's apologizing for (or if she should even be apologizing to Leslie in the first place), but Leslie isn't as picky about specifics as Ron. A generic apology works for Leslie.

 


	43. Ron Goes Down The Snakehole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron is prepared for everything. Almost.

The young Ron Swanson was never actually a boy scout. He was never even a cub scout. He firmly believes that this is no excuse for being unprepared. He prides himself on a number of his skills and qualities - among them is his preparedness for any given situation at any given time. When April sarcastically invites him to join her and some others at the Snakehole Lounge for Ladies' Night, he responds enthusiastically with a, "Why yes, April. I'd love to join you at the hottest night club in Pawnee."

She stares him vacantly, clearly having expected him to decline. Or perhaps she doesn't believe the Snakehole is the hottest night club in Pawnee. It's the only night club in Pawnee and Ron has never actually been there before. They don't serve food and dancing is something he finds to be so immensely frivolous that it gives him a headache. Regardless, April is his ally, and he will attend this "Ladies' Night" with her. As her ally. As her comrade.

He arrives early outside of the nightclub and finds that, as expected, his lady-friends are late. He knows this is not because they are ladies, but because this particular group of ladies are not very timely human beings. Once upon a time, Leslie Knope had been extremely timely. He's fairly certain that Ann Perkins intends to be on time, but never is because awful things happen to her. April simply doesn't care. He put on one of his nice pairs of jeans and ironed a flannel shirt for this event. He also combed his mustache. He waits patiently, watching the line for entrance into the Snakehole grow longer and longer. He wonders if he should get into the line to ensure their entrance, but April insisted for him to wait on the corner. After several more minutes, the ladies begin to join.

April arrives accompanied by Mayor Meagle, an unexpected attendee. Ron doesn't care for Mayor Meagle. "Hello, Donna," he greets her as pleasantly as he can muster.

"Hello, Ron," she says with equal sass.

"I hope you don't mind that invited the Mayor. She's been really stressed out lately and could use a night to treat herself. She works really hard," says April. Not a single one of her words is sincere, but Donna doesn't seem to mind (or notice).

Ron grunts.

Ann and Leslie arrive next and Ron promptly notes that something is amiss with Pawnee's favorite non-traditional couple. Both are wearing cocktail dresses, heels, their make-up and hair are all done up, they're smiling, but something is amiss. Ann Perkins seems uncomfortable, more so than usual. They had an argument. He knows all about having arguments with significant others, seeing as he has two very hostile ex-wives. They had an argument, but they don't want anyone to know so they stuck to their plans and they're trying to pretend they didn't have an argument. Ron can nearly smell the tension.

He soon discovers that Leslie is the reason he was told to wait on the corner. They bypass the line and the huge bouncer allows them to pass with a large, toothy smile.

Back somewhere in the line, Ron hears a voice that sounds like Tom's. He shouts, "Leslie! Leslie! Tell him to let me in! I know you! You know me! Please, Leslie!"

She doesn't hear him or ignored him. Both are equally likely, Ron decides. Immediately upon entering, he is bombarded by noise that is supposed to pass for music. It vibrates his chest. He doesn't care for the sensation. He also notes that it seems to be darker inside than it is outside.

"Good thing I brought a flashlight," Ron announces jovially. There's a click and then a beam of light illuminating the floor. The group finds their way to the bar much easier thanks to Ron and his flashlight. The bar has some illumination, not much, but some. Ron clicks off his flashlight and tucks it away into his pocket. He noticed that some other Snakehole attendees were starting to flock toward his light like moths. When he turned it off, they danced awkwardly away. He orders a scotch, neat. The bartender gives him some bottom shelf garbage that tastes like someone already drank it and them vomited it back into a bottle. He hands it back to the bartender and demands the most expensive scotch in the place.

April laughs and says, "Come on, Ron."

He takes his new scotch and she tugs on his sleeve, leading him to a table in a dark corner. He's glad she didn't want him to dance. That would not have been pleasant. His female companions all have strange looking drinks, which they guzzle rapidly before ordering more. He sips his scotch and observes. Donna is having a great time, oblivious to the strange tension between the other three women. Several people approach her as if she is a celebrity. They thank her for being mayor and they say they voted for her. She shows appreciation.

Ann orders an extremely large beverage that reeks of rum. It has a lot of straws. She offers some of the straws to April who declines and says, "I don't share drinks with the Lord of Darkness."

"Lady...Lady of Darkness," Ann says quietly.

"Saying it won't make it true, Man Perkins."

"Dammit, April. Stop being mean to Ann. I know you like her, so just be nice," Leslie snaps, suddenly. This causes everyone to freeze, except Donna who is giggling and drinking something pink she called a "Hiss Juice." 

"Donna, what's in that beverage?" he asks her.

"It's like a Sex on the Beach, but not as good."

"Why don't you order a Sex on the Beach?"

"This is a signature cocktail, Ron!"

He doesn't understand this, but decides to move on. April gets up and disappears into the darkness and bodies. Ann looks at Leslie and says, "Thank you for noticing how awful she is to me."

"I thought you two were getting along now."

"Yes, we were. Well, no. I don't know. It's hard to tell."

Leslie shifted gears rapidly and picked up both of her drinks, one in each hand. She says, "Time to dance!"

Ann shakes her head and Leslie looks toward Ron who doesn't validate her with so much as a blink. Donna takes her up on the offer and this leaves Ron and Ann at the poorly lit table. Ann attempts to make chit-chat with him and asks, "How can you afford that scotch when you live in a box under the bridge?"

"That's for me to know and for you to never know," he responds.

April returns with one of the many-strawed nightmare drinks and notes that their group got slightly smaller. With more bitterness than Ron would have expected, April speaks to Ann, "Not dancing with your girlfriend?"

"I haven't had enough drinks to dance."

April looks toward him, "Ron?"

He doesn't validate her question with a response. Instead, he sips his drink. April shrugs, sits next to Ann, then nudges the drink toward her.

"I'm not even done with this one. Plus, I thought you didn't want to share drinks with the Lord of Darkness."

"Changed my mind," she reaches over and takes four of Ann's straws. She puts them in her mouth and says, "I'll help you finish this one."

Ron silently watches their interaction. It's as if they forget he's even there. They insult each other back and forth. April is a bit faster than Ann, but Ann is surprisingly witty. Sometimes she pauses and makes the baffled face that Ron knows to be her default expression, but then she laughs. Ron realizes he has never heard Ann Perkins laugh. He finds it odd that she laughs when being berated. Perhaps she's drunk, he thinks. He believes he might be getting drunk from the alcohol fumes that are wafting around the Snakehole in intoxicating clouds.

Remembering Ron exists, April looks over at him and says, "You need another drink. You should try a Sweetums Fizz."

"That sounds horrible."

"Why are you afraid to try new things, Ron?" Ann asks with surprisingly force.

"Yeah, Ron. Don't be lame. Try some of the signature drinks. Branch out," April says with a mischievous grin. 

Ron doesn't care for that grin and he senses that her words are not necessarily directed at him and his drink choices. She's talking about something else, but he doesn't know what. It's a secret message. He can't decipher it at the moment. She orders him a Sweetums Fizz then she and Ann stare at him as he attempts to drink it. It's repulsive. He chokes it down with a sputter and then he says, "Ludgate, I think I got diabetes from drinking that."

"You drank it wrong," she says, her eyes boring into his soul.

"You know how you're supposed to drink those? Throw them onto the floor and don't drink them at all."

"I'll get you another scotch, Ron," Ann says, somewhat apologetically, but there's a lot of amusement in her voice. 

"Another scotch would be appreciated and I will also buy your next round of drinks."

Ann is good for her word and so is Ron. Ron then joins in the conversation with them. Ann blathers on and on about how much she hates her job, April does the same. Ron says, "I love my job."

"You're such a downer," April says to him, flatly before turning to Ann, "Dance with me, hag."

"You don't dance, and you could at least ask me nicely."

April blinks, "You're right, I don't dance. I just want to go stand in the middle of those thrashing fools that look like human squid. With you. Hag. Please?"

"Fine, yes."

"Ron, hold the table. Protect our drinks from roofies."

He nods, accepting his responsibility. Mere second later as April and Ann disappear into the fog of bodies, Leslie emerges. She's quite sweaty and she says, "Where did my beautiful, wilting sunflower Ann go?"

"She went to stand on the dance floor with April."

"Whew!" Leslie collapses into a chair.

"Excellent, you can watch the drinks and guard our table," Ron gets to his feet and stretches. "Nature is calling. My body appears to be trying to expel the Sweetums Fizz I was forced to consume." Before she can object, Ron clicks on his flashlight and attempts to find the restrooms. Instead of finding the restrooms he stumbles upon something else. Something he was not prepared for. 


	44. Ann's Life Suddenly Becomes Ridiculous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This likely isn't good for her ulcer.

April's hands are on her waist and she's urging her backwards. Ann isn't sure what's happening, but she quickly finds herself leaning against a wall. The walls in the Snakehole are surely disgusting, which is probably why they keep it so dark. She can barely see anything, barely even make out that it's April touching her. Why is April touching her? What even is happening? They were standing on the dance floor with assorted strangers rubbing up against them, shouting insults at one another over the music and then suddenly they were here.

When April brushes her bangs away from her forehead she groans then says, "Ugh. You need to keep those there. You're forehead is massive. It's like a helicopter landing pad."

"April, I..." Ann can't seem to bring herself to say anything else. April's hands are on either side of her face and their faces are way too close together. There's only one reason peoples' faces get this close together.

She isn't sure who kisses whom first. She's had too many of those damned Medusa's Revenge disaster drinks. She couldn't get away even if she'd wanted to. She isn't sure if she wants to. She's pinned against the wall with April's mouth hungrily grasping at hers. Her fingers are all tangled in the fabric of April's shirt. Her eyes are closed, but there's light. There's some sort of glow and she imagines some sort of heavenly halo around April's head, which makes no sense on any level. Nothing makes sense and then the light is gone

"Ow," she exclaims sharply and pulls away when April bites down on her bottom lip. "Jesus," she mumbles and reaches up to check for blood. It's so damn dark she can't see if there actually is any. She doesn't taste the distinct metallic taste and she assumes her face is intact. Her other hand still clings to April's shirt.

April is looking down. Her hands drifted down to Ann's shoulders at some point, where they rest lightly. They're still too close together. Ann thinks she can feel April's heartbeat, but maybe it's her own. Her stomach feels like it's dissolving its own lining. She isn't sure if it's the drinks when she barely ate anything all day or if it's the fact that she just made out with her girlfriend's extremely irksome young friend. 

"Um..." Ann says.

"You're a shitty kisser," April says when she finally looks up. She doesn't move away. She just looks up and has that same nothingness expression that she normally has. Ann knows her forehead is creased and she too has slipped into the same confused expression that she normally has as well.

"You bit me," Ann snaps. She doesn't mean to snap, but her stomach hurts a great deal and very suddenly. She finally, actually, pushes April away. She backs off limply, helplessly. "I...I'm sorry," Ann apologizes. She doesn't exactly know why. She retreats quickly around the corner into the bathroom. For a moment she was fairly certain she was going to puke on April, which would have been the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to her. She's also fairly certain that April would never let her forget it if it did happen, which would make it that much worse. She regains control of her gag reflex once she's in the poorly lit bathroom. The stalls are occupied. She clings to one of the sinks and shutters for several moments before dousing her face with water. She doesn't look at herself in the mirror, she can't. 

She touches her lip and it stings. She wonders if it will bruise. She's already concocted a lie for Leslie about being elbowed in the face while stupidly standing on the dance floor. Why is she already planning a lie? What's wrong with her? How drunk is she? Is kissing for a few seconds even cheating? She hasn't been in a committed relationship in so long that she no longer knows the rules. Are there even rules? She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything except that she's in the bathroom of the Snakehole. It's a tiny, dingy place with stickers on the toilets and the water always sputters at first after turning on a faucet. 

What bizarro world did she fall into where she's in a relationship and suddenly people are interested in her? Is April even interested or was it a mean trick? Some sort of test? Oh, God. It was a test and she failed. She was very quick to kiss someone that wasn't Leslie and now April was going to rip her throat out and make her eat it. Her stomach does a flip out of terror and panic.

She leaves the bathroom feeling dirty and ashamed. She trudges back to the table, feeling like she's wading through a swamp of guilt. The music pounds. She doesn't even know what song it is. She wants to think of anything other than what just happened, but it's all she can think about. Ron and Leslie are sitting at the table. Ron has his arms crossed and looks at her. She's certain that he somehow knows what happened. He knows everything. She thinks he might be able to read minds.

Leslie asks, "Where's April?"

Ann feelings like she's going to puke again. She swallows hard and says something that isn't a lie, "I don't know. I went to the bathroom and she was gone when I came out."

"You look pale," Leslie observes.

It's so dark, Ann doesn't know how she can see her to know she's pale. She again tells the truth, "I'm not feeling well."

"Oh, Ann. Let's go home then. Let's go home right now."

Ron is staring at her. He knows. He somehow knows. She feels like she's sinking into the guilt swamp. She's standing in guilt quicksand with sandbags full of shame strapped to her legs. 

"Do you need me to lead you to safety with my...flashlight?" Ron asks, not taking his eyes from Ann.

Ann then knows what the light was, which was certainly not a heavenly halo around April's stupid head.


	45. April Has A Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem is feelings.

"I have a problem," April says to Ron, sitting across from him at his booth in JJ's Diner.

"No kidding," is his response.

How does this man know the inner workings of everyones' heads in Pawnee when he lives in a cabin in the woods? Scrying, she assumes. She raises an eyebrow and decides not to even say what she was originally going to say her problem was (Ann) and she says something different. "Even though Chris and Ben are gone to Bora Bora, Donna is still convinced she's receiving assorted messages from the Mayor Menace. It isn't me and I'm pretty sure she's not receiving messages."

"That's what happens when you gaslight someone well, April. They actually do go insane."

He knows. She knows he knows and he knows that she knows that he knows. It's terrible. She clears her throat and says, "There's something else."

"I know," he says.

She opens her mouth to say it, but all that comes out is this extended "Aaaaaah" noise. Leslie walks in. She sees them both. She's coming over. April's mouth snaps shuts and her lips are sealed.

"Seat taken?" Leslie asks her.

She scoots over, saying nothing. Her lips are shut so tightly that her face is beginning to hurt. 

"Where's Ann?" Ron asks Leslie and then his eyes shoot over toward April, accusingly. Or at least she thinks this happens. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe, like Mayor Meagle, she is going insane. She must be going insane because: A) she has some sort of feeling-feelings and/or sexy-feelings for another human that she also thinks is an exceedingly lame person, B) that other human is her friend's significant other, and C) feelings are gross and stupid. But all she can think about over the past week is the way Ann kissed her back and pulled on her shirt. She shouldn't have bitten her. She thought it would be funny. Hell, it was still funny. But then Ann looked like she was going to hurl. That was actually funny too. April really had no regrets about the event except that it seems to have rendered her even more useless than usual and made her paranoid about Ron.

Leslie says, "She was having stomach issues again and wanted to stay in tonight. I decided I could use some waffles, and lo and behold, two of my favorite people are here!"

"Maybe she should get that stomach thing checked out," April says. Ron stares at her accusingly. He's accusing her of being nice, of caring. She can't have that, but she can't think of a mean follow-up. She seriously just blanks right there. She begins folding her napkin aimlessly.

"I keep telling her that," Leslie says. "But she won't. I don't know why not. It isn't like she doesn't have insurance. She's a stubborn little tortoise."

"And how's Andy?" Ron then asks her, glancing again toward April after posing the question.

She's so sure that he glanced at her. She looks down at the napkin in front of her on the table and doesn't even listen to Leslie's answer. She doesn't care about the answer. She knows Andy's doing fine - as fine as someone can do in prison. He's making friends and they have all of the best discontinued snack foods. April's thoughts keep drifting to Ann. To that dumb face she makes to her dumbass laugh. Ann is boring and old. She also seems to have moderate to severe IBS or something, which is gross. Boring, old, gross. April wants to hang out with Ann. She needs to find something wrong with her...more wrong with her. The laundry list of things she hates about Ann are apparently not deal breakers. This is all very confusing.

"April?" Leslie says to her.

April realizes that Leslie has probably been saying her name for a solid minute. She looks down at her bare wrist and says, "Oh, crap. I'm late for a thing. An appointment. With my mortician."

Leslie confusedly lets her out of the booth and April is outside in a matter of seconds. It smells like meat inside of JJ's. Outside, it still smells a little like meat, but it also smells like sewage and pine trees. April goes to Ann's apartment. She walks there. Of course she knows where Ann lives. She works in city hall and has access to all of Pawnee's water bills. A light is on inside. She walks to the door and raises her knuckles to knock then she stops and tuckers her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. She walks away quickly. 

"Gross. Gross. Gross. I'm gross," she mumbles. She tells herself she's not trying to steal her friend's girlfriend. She's merely trying to find something wrong with her. Leslie sort of sucks. Leslie didn't used to suck, but now she sort of sucks, April realizes. She pushes these thoughts away, not wanting to inadvertently justify any of her other totally out of place thoughts.

"April? Is that you? What are you doing?" A voice calls from behind her.

She freezes. Ann Perkins. She could just start walking again, ignore her, go home, pretend this didn't happen. She turns around and sees her standing on the sidewalk in sweats with her arms crossed several feet back. 

April begins, "How did you-"

"I saw you through the window," she answers before she can finish. She asks again, "What are you doing?"

"Evening jog?" she answers unsurely and hoping her lie will pass.

"Ok..." Ann says. She doesn't believe her and it's so obvious. "Do you want to come in or something?"

"No!" She responds too quickly, too loudly, and too adamantly. Quick, loud, and adamant are sure-fire ways to completely undermine a denial of anything. She attempts to recover, but she hesitates. Hesitating after what is obviously a fake denial is a great way to make your denial seem even more fake. She says, "Uh, Leslie said you had a stomach thing. I think you might be contagious. I'd hate to miss work."

"I'm fine," she tells her. "I just didn't feel like going out tonight is all."

"Oh." April shuffles around and tries to move away from her, but her feet seem to be made of concrete and they've melted into the sidewalk. She's one with the God damn sidewalk.

"Why don't you come in for a minute?"

Why was Ann pressuring her like this? April thinks she probably wants to talk about what happened at the Snakehole, which is the absolute last thing she wants to do. Everyone is all the time wanting to attach emotions to everything. You can't just kiss some old woman in the Snakehole anymore without it meaning something. Ann steps more directly into the light and April can see her bruised lip. This is satisfying. It means Ann thinks about her whenever she looks in the mirror. No. No. She's having all sorts of conflicting thoughts. 

"April, you ok?" Ann asks. Her feet are bare and she looks so much more comfortable than when April has seen her at the Snakehole or when she's at work. She looks normal. She looks like a person. She had hoped her skin would be leathery when she touched her, but it wasn't at all. 

April bites down on her own lip and then says, "I can't. I have a thing."

"Well, nevermind." Ann isn't mad. She's disappointed, which is worse by far.

The following day, April has flowers delivered to Ann's office. She doesn't include a card or anything to indicate she sent them. While arranging the delivery, she can hear Ron's voice saying over and over, "This is exactly how to send a complete and utter miscommunication."

"Lack of communication," she corrects the Ron-voice. 

 


	46. Donna's Descent Into Madness Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be loyal to the nightmare of your choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that all six of you kudo-leavers are enjoying what might be my fanfiction magnum opus.

Mayor Meagle released April from her duties as her personal detective and changed her supplemental job title to 'body guard' instead. Nothing bad ever seemed to happen to her when April was around. People also get out of April's way, which was useful for shopping excursions. April is also useful for carrying her bags for said shopping excursions. Tom came back to work and Donna also had a supplemental job for him as well - food tester. 

At lunch, Tom comes to the Faux-val Office or accompanies Donna out to her eatery of choice. He takes a bite of everything and then they wait ten minutes to determine if the food contains any poison. It's just like medieval times or Ancient Rome or something when all of the important people had food testers. Tom also takes a sip of each of her drinks before she does. Not only is this good for poison, but it's also great for determining when her morning coffee is too hot to drink. 

"Oh, my God, Donna," April says, sounding exasperated, but still with her characteristic monotone. "The Mayor Menace is gone."

"You don't know what."

"I do know," she retorts. 

"Explain the bird excrement on my windshield, April."

"A bird took a dump on your windshield."

"It wasn't planted there by the Mayor Menace to vandalize my car?"

April sighs and doesn't answer. She crosses her arms and looks down at her shoes.

Donna sits in the Iron Throne, her hands clasped in front of her. She leans forward, studying April, thinking. April has been insisting that the threat of the Mayor Menace has passed, but Donna has still felt menaced. April has a convenient explanation for all of the more recent attacks. April couldn't have possibly been involved, could she? No. No, of course not. Not her former personal detective and now body guard and personal assistant.

"I'm psychic," April blurts out. Donna eyes her skeptically and she says, "Yep, you heard me. I am psychic and I know that the Mayor Menace is gone. Gone to Bora Bora, in fact."

"What about the-"

"Nope," she says, shaking her head.

"And the-"

"Nope. The Mayor Menace's goal was to make you crazy and you're letting him win."

"So it was a man?"

April nods. 

The mayor is unsure. She doesn't quite believe in psychics. She called a few psychic hotlines in her day, back when she was very active in the Pawnee dating scene. "If you're psychic then why don't you win the lottery?"

"I'm not that type of psychic. There are different types of psychics."

"Why aren't you famous? Why aren't you on a ghost hunting show talking to ghosts in haunted houses?"

"Not that type of psychic. Also, it's against the Psychic's Code to use your abilities for profit. If you do, your powers are taken away."

"You're shitting me, April."

She looks up, takes a few steps forward and then places her palms on Donna desk. She leans forward, looks Donna in the eyes and says after a long pause, "Maybe."

Donna leans back in her chair, not because she's intimidated by her, but because she doesn't like close-talkers. "Are you saying this because you don't want to be my body guard anymore? Am I not paying you enough?"

"Yes, well, no. I mean, you don't need a body guard. You paid me adequately. A little more would have been nice for all of the bag carrying, but no...just..." She takes a deep breath, stands up straights and crosses her arms again, "The Mayor Menace is gone and you're making yourself crazy."

"Girl, did you just call the Mayor of Pawnee crazy?"

April's eyes narrow and she closes her mouth tightly. It forms a thin line. Donna can clearly visualize the gears in her head turning. She waits for April's response. What she says next is unexpected. April changes the subject abruptly saying, "I need some advice."

Donna likes giving advice. She's a fountain of knowledge. She would love to impart that great knowledge on the young April Ludgate. She grins and folds her hands in her lap, "Go ahead, Miss Ludgate."

"It's hypothetical."

"Ok."

"You dated a lot of people, right?"

She nods, proudly, "Every eligible bachelor in Pawnee and a few in Eagleton."

"You never dated anyone that was otherwise...involved, right?"

"Not on purpose. Men are scum though. A few men lied just to take me out to dinner...mmmhmm," she nods again. "Mayor Meagle can give you all sorts of dating advice."

"No, that's not...that's not it exactly. Did you ever hypothetically like someone that was maybe with someone else you knew? Hypothetically, your best friend, for example."

Donna thinks about her words, "Is someone after your man?"

"My man? What?"

"Tom."

"For the last time, I am not dating Tom!" April says loudly.

"Do you need me to test something, Mayor Meagle? I heard my name." Tom pokes his head into the office.

"No, Tom," she motions for him to go and he vanishes again. She looks back at April, "I could have sworn you and Tom were an item."

"Nevermind," she mumbles quickly and stomps out of the room. She attempts to slam the door behind her, but the soft-closing hinge totally ruins her dramatic exit and the large door closes slowly and quietly behind her.

Donna laces her fingers and rotates her chair to face the windows. The day is overcast and foreboding. There's a small brown bird in the bush that obstructs the view of her kingdom. It hops down to the edge of a branch, looks straight at her then flies away to take a message to its master - the Mayor Menace. Donna gets up the closes the curtains.


	47. Ann's Internal Conflicts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And gastrointestinal concerns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? What am I writing? Why? I hope everyone is enjoying it.

Ann manages to think surprisingly little about what happened at The Snakehole. She nearly convinces herself that she made up the entire ridiculous scenario. That is, until she sees April lurking outside of one of her windows. Leslie had gone to JJ's to get food, but she stayed in because her stomach felt exceptionally unpleasant. It felt so unpleasant she even skipped her evening wine. She didn't know why her guts were rebelling with such force. It certainly wasn't guilt or any sort of confusion, she told herself, on account of nothing happened at The Snakehole. The nothing that happened certainly didn't have anything to do with April, who happened to be standing outside. 

After a momentary pause, Ann's stomach clenches, and she decides to go out and see what April's doing. Nothing happened between her and April, so she has no intention of talking about it or acting strange. This is not the case with April, who proceeds to act completely neurotic.

Perhaps something did happen at The Snakehole, Ann realizes. She goes back inside and balls up on one end of the sofa. If she talks about what may or may not have happened with anyone it should be with Leslie, right? She doesn't want Leslie to be mad, but she isn't sure if mad is even one of Leslie's feelings. She isn't sure if there's even anything to be mad about. She stares vacantly at the television and her stomach lets out a low grumble that sounds like a grumble of disapproval. Is it disapproving of what happened at The Snakehole?

~~~~~

The following day Ann receives flowers at work. Sort of. They aren't exactly flowers, they're more a plant. She doesn't know what sort of plant. It has some flowers. She supposes they're pretty. She doesn't know where she's going to put it because there's no room in her office. She rummages through the foliage looking for the card she believes will reveal that the plant is from Tom. There's no card.

"Do you know who this is from?" she asks the secretary. 

"How should I know? All I did was sign for them from the florist. I didn't know I was supposed to ask."

"Uh, ok...thanks," she says and picks up the potted plant then heads toward her office. She sits down and holds it on her lap then pulls some antacids from one of her desk drawers and begins crunching on a few. Her stomach feels like it's collapsed onto itself like a black hole. It's slowly sucking the rest of her internal organs into its gravitational pull and it all feels very awful. Her condition is not improving. She momentarily considers making a doctor's appointment, but instead she decides to Google the plant on her lap. 

She types in the search box:

_plant with chunky green succulent leaves pink flowers with yellow center_

The results are unsatisfactory. She sighs. How will she take care of this plant if she doesn't know what it is? Tom surely would have included a note with a bad pick-up line or some other awkward sexual advance. Who could have sent this thing if not Tom?

"April?" she mumbles aloud then says, "No."

What a silly thought. She pops another antacid into her mouth. Maybe it was Leslie and she forgot to include a note. Or she assumed she would be the only person sending Ann a plant. Or something. She decides to call Leslie and thank her at lunch. Thinking about lunch causes her stomach to make a judgmental growl. 

~~~~~

"Thanks for the flowers...err - plant," Ann says to Leslie when she picks up after just two rings.

"What?" Leslie says, speaking quickly. She sounds busy.

"The plant. I'll bring it home and hopefully it won't die. There's no room for it in my office."

"Huh?"

"The plant."

"What are you talking about, Ann? Did you say plant? Plan? Bland?"

She pauses and states, "You didn't send the plant."

"No? But listen, I'm at the prison. Andy is expecting me, so I need to go."

"Oh..." she says to her, feeling a little disappointing and a lot confused. "Ok."

Ann is going to ask if she wants her to pick up any takeout or anything for dinner, but before she has a chance, Leslie hangs up. She looks down at the plant on her lap and sits her cellphone on top of some papers on her desk. Sometimes Leslie sort of sucks, she thinks and feels a pang in her stomach. The pink blooms look back at her absently. Without realizing, she reaches up and touches her bruised lip. Something definitely happened at The Snakehole. She told Leslie that someone had elbowed her in the mouth one the poorly lit dance floor and that she bit her own lip - this is false. She lied. Her own insides and the jovial plant are all judging her. She lied and she needed to confess. She picks her phone back up and calls Leslie back.

She doesn't answer. She's visiting Andy. Her ex-boyfriend. In prison.

Sometimes Leslie sucks and April Ludgate sent her a weird succulent?

Scrolling through the contacts in her phone, she realized she didn't have April's number. She's not sure she would call her at the moment if she did. She can look it up online, her office number that is. She could say something like, "Don't send me plants. This is a mean joke. Now stop."

Surely that's what all of this is - a mean April joke. Certainly April doesn't have any sort of feelings or anything. April doesn't have feelings at all, except perhaps hate and some sort of loyalty to Leslie. April is clearly just trying to ruin her life for her own twisted amusement. She's going to tell Leslie about it too. She needs to know the truth about her mean, little friend. 

Ann spends all of lunch trying to convince herself of this while munching on antacids and sipping on Pepto. As the minutes tick by she feels as if she forgot something then she realizes that lunch is long over and she needed to be in court five minutes ago. 

 


	48. And Then Leslie Gets Confused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leslie and Ann are an awful couple. I do not ship them anymore.

Leslie looks at Ann and Ann looks away.

"I don't understand what you're saying, Ann," she says to her. 

"I'm saying that April kissed me at The Snakehole and that I think she sent me that plant," Ann responds and points adamantly at the plant sitting on the counter in the kitchen.

"But why would April kiss you, Ann?" Leslie comes off sounding more incredulous than she intends, but there's nothing she can do about it once she says it. She's not sure what it is she doesn't believe.

"I don't know! That's what I'm saying. I also don't know why she'd send me a weird plant." Ann is now sounding very frustrated.

Leslie crosses her arms. They're standing between the living room and the kitchen and she can't stop looking at the plant. It's this crawling green thing with big pink and yellow blooms. It's not pretty in a conventional flower sense, but it isn't a hideous plant. If April were to send someone flowers, it would probably be this plant...or a cactus. She just saw April and she didn't mention any of this to her. She didn't even hint at it, although she was acting a bit strange. She's April though. April's always sort of weird. Ann is fidgeting in front of her. 

"I still don't understand what you're telling me," she said again to Ann.

"I'm just telling you what happened," she groans and retreats into the kitchen where she begins to open a bottle of wine. "I haven't talked to April so I can't tell you why she's doing these things. I'm just telling you what she did. Jesus, Leslie."

"Did you kiss her back?"

Ann stops what she's doing and looks up, "Did I kiss her back? How old are we, Leslie? Don't be a child."

Leslie is taken aback by Ann's sudden snippiness. She isn't really mad, per se. She's just confused. She still doesn't quite believe it. It's simply so baffling that she can't imagine it. She can't even picture it. It makes no sense. "I thought you said April didn't even like you."

Ann shrugs and returns to her wine, looking sheepish again. 

"Ann," Leslie says with a sigh, "You're a beautiful, awkward lobster."

"I don't care right now," she snaps again and takes her glass of wine to the couch, walking past Leslie without even giving her so much as a glance.

This is even more confusing. Leslie should be the one that's mad, but Ann is mad. Nothing is making sense. She has been transported into Bizarro World and Bizarro-Ann still drinks wine to excess, but she is unreceptive to Leslie's compliments.

"I'm not mad at you. I might be mad at April, but I'm not entirely sure at the moment. Why are you mad?" Leslie isn't sure what to do with Bizarro-Ann. She isn't sure about anything at the moment. She just stands where she's been standing and looks at the back of Ann's head over the back of the couch. 

"You're kind of a shitty girlfriend," Ann mumbles.

Leslie barely hears her. She isn't even sure she hears her correctly at first, but then she knows that she does. Oh my, Bizarro-Ann! These words are even more shocking to Leslie than Ann's out-of-character tone. Where is regular Ann who is constantly seeking approval? Leslie likes than Ann. She realizes though that this is all probably the result of her utter disbelief and failure to understand the words coming out of Ann's mouth. She isn't sure why this made Ann so angry. She adds to the very long list of things she isn't sure about at the second.

"Ann, but you're a..." Leslie's voice trails off. She resists the urge to procure an elaborate compliment comparing Ann to any sort of sea creature or any creature or anything else for that matter. Zero comparisons.  

"Maybe we should talk about you and Andy."

"What do you mean?" She realizes that she sounds very much like a broken record and she winces, but Ann can't see because she still hasn't turned around. She's sipping her wine and facing the television still, which makes for not very good conversation, but Leslie can't bring herself to move. 

"I mean, I think you still have feelings for him."

"No," she says to her quickly (maybe too quickly). "Not feeling-feelings."

Ann groans noisily then says, "Nevermind."

And the conversation ends as quickly as it began. Bizarro World and Bizarro Ann melt away around Leslie and Regular, Non-Confronatational Ann is back. Leslie also regains use of her legs and she sits down next to Ann on the couch. Her glass of wine is already empty.

Ann asks, "Do you want some wine? I'll get you a glass."

 


	49. Tammy 2: Harbinger of the Apocalypse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pawnee's Public Library: The Forgotten Tenth Circle of Hell

Rumors of a sage-like homeless, mustached man that plays a saxophone on the street of Pawnee, Indiana reached the ears of Tammy Swanson several weeks ago. She's been on the trail of her ex-husband Ron for years. He vanished without a trace and dropped off the grid after they divorced. He seemed to think she might be planning to murder him, and he was not incorrect.

She's been getting closer and closer to finding him. He is her white whale, her albatross...all of those literary metaphors about obsession. She can sense him with her Ron Radar...her Ron-dar! Maybe Ron Sonar would be more appropriate, but Ron-nar doesn't sound as appealing.  The trail leads her at last to Pawnee, a very welcoming, total bullshit town. She promptly gets a job at the library. A public library is always the perfect place to set up a base of operations. Libraries are underrated as locations for evil lairs, she thinks. Pawnee's library is no exception - it's large, quiet, there's free internet, and no people ever come in so she ends up with the entire building to herself to work on her plans.

Her plans are nefarious. 

She doesn't like the way that Ron ended things with her. She's going to win him back and then end things her way. Her way to end things is to make sure she is the sole beneficiary of all of the money he's squirreled away then kill him and make it look like an accident. She thinks some insane woodworking accident would do the trick, but her options are open. That's what the internet is for. She can look up dumb ass ways to die anonymously from the library. She's also been researching various poisons, how to make things like ricin, and where to find toxic plants like datura. Libraries contain books on all sorts of useful things. Looking up ways to kill people in books doesn't draw attention from the government internet police - Ron taught her that. Ron told her he learned it from his first wife, Tammy 1. She knows Tammy 1 is also gunning for Ron, but she needs to get to him first. She has a great lead here in Pawnee. This is the closest she's ever been to finding him.

She's spent the last several years chasing bad leads. It's unbelievable how many sage-like mustached men exist in the midwest. The one in Pawnee is the only one that apparently plays jazz on a saxophone wearing at trilby hat and sunglasses. 

She'd been quietly existing in Pawnee, setting up her evil lair in the library basement, when another clue falls right into her lap. She's so close to finding Ron that she can smell his manly musk wafting through the doors of the building.

She hears the doors open. It's a strange sound. No one has come into the library that doesn't work at the library. She looks up from the circulation desk where she is filing her nails. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose to get a look at the visitor. It's a young woman with straight, dark hair. She has piercing eyes and she seems to know what she needs, which is good because Tammy hates actually helping people. They exchange a single glance and the girl disappears. Tammy goes back to her nails and puts her feet up onto the desk. She takes a moment to admire her own toned calf muscles and her red, patent leather heels. She is irresistible. She sometimes wonders why she doesn't carry a stick or some other blunt weapon to fight off men and the occasional woman.

"Library wench," the visitor returns and addresses her.

"That's offensive," she says with a scowl, bringing her legs down and rotating the swivel chair around to face her.

"I need books on how to kill men."

Tammy raises an eyebrow.

"I don't want to check them out. I need to read them here."

"Smart," she nods. She's amused and decides to provide assistance. "Do you not know how to look up books in a library?" She answers her own question, "Of course you don't. I'm surprised you know what a library even is."

"It's a place where you can research without the government watching you although the government technically owns this building. It's a way to hide from the government within the government and really stick it to the man."

Tammy studies the girl. The words are Ron's. They are straight up from the Gospel of Ron Swanson. She's heard the sermon before in the Church of Ron. She's not a believer in the Scripture of Ron, but recognizes that it does have its merits. Ron is in Pawnee or has at least passed through. She asks, "Where did you learn that?"

"Doesn't everyone know it?"

Like Fight Club, the first rule of the Church of Ron is never to talk about the Church of Ron. This is more evidence of Ron's influence. She then asks, "Who are you planning to kill?"

"My ex-boyfriend...well, I just want to make him think I'm planning to kill him."

How disappointing. No conviction. Tammy starts for the outdated computer used to look up library books. It's like google, but for the books in the library - amazing. The girl follows her with her hands in her pockets. She shows her how it works.

"Thanks," the girl pauses and looks at the embossed metallic name tag pinned to her left boob. "Tammy...Swanson..."

Tammy doesn't like the way she says her name, but she forces a smile and says between her teeth, "You're welcome."

She returns to the circulation desk and inconspicuously observes the visitor. She later finds out that her name is April Ludgate and she works at City Hall. April Ludgate is her ticket to Ron. It doesn't occur to her until later that April Ludgate may also choose to warn Ron of her presence in Pawnee. An unfortunate oversight. She's blinded by her obsession with finding him.


	50. Will This Madness Ever End?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No. Probably not.

His cabin is quiet. Too quiet. The woodland creatures have gone silent - this is how he knows someone is approaching. Only one person knows the way to his cabin and that's April. Ron hasn't spoken significantly to April since she attempted to verbalize a great dilemma to him only to be interrupted by Leslie. Several weeks have passed since and mostly things have stayed the same in Pawnee. Ron is content while everyone else is miserable. Mayor Meagle is also doing alright or so it appears from his perspective playing sweet jazz music outside of city hall some afternoons. She's still everyone's favorite mayor. Tom is now her personal assistant and he remains paranoid that April is going to murder him one day. He failed to open Tom's Diner. 

Ron goes into his kitchen prepares a second scotch for April while he waits for her to knock.

Silence follows for several more moments and then the chickens begin making a ruckus. There is still no knock. What is she doing? He wonders. He sips. He waits.

Silence except the chickens. They aren't being killed. It isn't chicken-terror noises. They're just making general there-is-a-person-in-our-business chicken noises. What if it isn't April? What if someone has discovered his secret, tax-free cabin? What if it's the IRS? What if it's one of his ex-wives? He remains calm and waits.

The chickens go quiet. Presumably back to their chicken business as the visitor is no longer nearby. The IRS wouldn't dilly-dally with knocking. Neither of his ex-wives would knock at all. Clearly the visitor is April and she's likely standing outside of the door and waiting for Ron to open it without her knocking. Once again they have trapped one another in a stand-off of wits and test of dominance. He will not give in.

He looks at the glass of scotch he prepared for her and decides that if she never knocks, he will just have to drink it himself. This is not the end of the world. 

He hopes she doesn't want to talk about feelings. He hopes she's just visiting to sit on his porch with him as he tell her all of the types of trees he used to make his cabin. The only acceptable feelings that he would presently be receptive to are feelings of destruction - as in, destruction of the government. He fully acknowledges that this will not likely be the case. Ann and Leslie broke up, but Leslie still lives with Ann because Ann doesn't know how to tell her to go back to Andy's house next to the meth lab explosion hole. It's really no wonder that Ann Perkins is the worst defense attorney in Pawnee, probably all of Indiana, maybe even the entire United States. Ann has also been looking quite unhealthy. Ron thinks she probably has an ulcer. He wonders when it will start bleeding. Things will get real gross then. She should find a new job. Ron would tell her as much, but it isn't his business. Leslie needs to find a job in general. He has, in fact, told her this. She's constantly joining him for lunch, which has begun to cut into his quality afternoon alone time with food.

April has been acting normal - too normal, if that's possible. She's been her scowling, sarcastic, evil plotting self, which is what Ron wants from her. He knows well enough though that she has "a problem." It's likely slowly driving her insane like a brain worm. She's at his cabin now because the worm has eaten away enough of her brain to make her think that talking to him about it is a good idea and will accomplish something.

As if on cue, April bellows from his porch, "Ron, I have a problem!"

He's slouching, leaning on the counter and he slowly straightens up, rolling his shoulders. He wiggles his mustache then picks up both glasses of scotch and heads for the door. He balances both glasses in one hand and opens his heavy, wooden door. April is standing on his welcome mat (which he put out for ironic purposes) with her hands in the pockets of her jeans. He hands her one glass and then they sit down in the chairs on his porch without saying anything else. They both sit quietly for several minutes, drinking and watching a chipmunk nearby. Ron isn't going to ask her about her problem. He knows what it is, but that isn't why he won't ask, of course.

On cue again and as if reading his mind, she says, "I know you're not asking me what my so-called problem is because you don't want to seem like you care."

Ron doesn't believe in mind reading. He looks at her with his best poker face, which is pretty damn good. She looks back at him with hers, which is more than adequate. He grunts and looks back in the direction of the chipmunk, but it's gone.

"If I tell you what my problem is I'm pretty sure it's going to sound really, really stupid. Like the most stupid thing in the entire world, ever," she says. "Hyperbole aside, the problem is stupid and I guess that's why it's a problem." She then mutters angrily, "Everything I said just now was also stupid."

"Most problems are stupid," he responds. "I'm not sure what exactly you expect me to do with the information you're about to give me."

"Advice, Ron. Advice," she says with a sigh.

"I am not a dispenser of advice, Ludgate. I am a self-sufficient, solitary man disinterested in involving myself in the menial so-called problems of Greater Pawnee."

"I wish you'd make up your mind whether or not you want to be the Pawnee Sage or not. You give Tom advice all the time."

"Business advice, which he doesn't take."

"How do you know I don't want business advice?"

"I'm the Pawnee Sage. I know everything." He says sarcastically and doesn't look at her, but knows she's glowering. He adds, "I saw you in the Snakehole and I implied the rest with my highly refined skills of observation over the last several weeks. I see and hear everything that happens in Pawnee, whether I want to or not."

She starts to speak, "I-"

"You've caught some feels."

April groans noisily and slumps forward in the chair. "No matter how you say it, it sounds stupid."

Ron shrugs. He hasn't caught any feels in a long time. He doesn't want to catch the feels again.

"Maybe it would be less stupid if Ann weren't gross and old and really lame." She speaks with no conviction.

"Maybe." After a brief pause, Ron says, "Again, I'm unsure what you want me to say to you."

"Tell me I'm being stupid and to get over it...I don't know."

Ron feels himself becoming increasingly disinterested in this conversation. It's making him feel angry and ruining his Zen. He sees movement near the bottom step. He points and says, "The chipmunk came back. I think it was under the porch."

"Dammit, Ron."

"Why are you talking to me about this? Talk to Ann. Unless you've developed feelings for me, there's really no reason to discuss feelings _with_ me." He kept his eyes on the rodent and said, "There are twenty-five species of chipmunk and twenty-four of them are native to North America except one, the Siberian Chipmunk. Guess where the Siberian Chipmunk lives."

"Why do you know that?"

"Why don't you?"

The forest creature frolics in the underbrush, continuing to search for food. Ron asks, "What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?"

"I've gone over every possible scenario in my head a million times...Ann might tell me I'm a creepy, weird asshole and that she never wants to see me again and then I would have to avoid the Public Defenders Office for the rest of my life...which wouldn't be so bad, I guess. Are you trying to tell me that nothing too awful could happen because of this?"

Ron chuckles, "No! Not at all. This whole thing could easily go very wrong and ruin your entire life, April."

"Wait...what?"

"Do you know what's worse than flat out rejection, followed by healthy avoidance?" He looks at her and she shrugs. "You and Ann could have what appears to be a happy, wonderful, and fun life together until one day when you realize she is actually evil incarnate and the only thing keeping you together is a very lively and dangerous sexual chemistry."

"Huh?"

"Perhaps the amenable and awkward Ann Perkins, constantly seeking approval, is a cover. Perhaps the real Ann Perkins is a soulless wench from the very darkest depths of Hell."

"Are you, like, talking about one of your ex-wives right now?" she asks him.

He is. April's feelings have stirred up some residual feelings of his own. This is why he began to feel angry. It is a struggle for him to maintain his incredibly calm exterior when thoughts of his ex-wives are brought to the forefront of his sharp mind. He's thinking about Tammy Swanson, the second one...the third one in his life if you count his mother. Thinking about Tammy 2 makes him think about Tammy 1. Thinking about both of them at once is overwhelming. It's a sensory overload of confusion and pain. He should have murdered them both. He could have ground them up with his meat grinding machine. He could have made them into loose meat sandwiches. Would he have eaten them? He doesn't know. Perhaps he would have gained their great evil powers if he had. If only...

"Ron?" April snaps her fingers in front of his face, "What's wrong with you?"

He can no longer speak. His eyes feel dry and he can't blink them. He feels his glass of scotch slipping from his hand. It takes all of his will power to tighten his fingers around it enough to not drop it, spilling its sweet contents. He is flooded with terror, a petrifying terror. April grabs onto the front of his shirt and shakes him.

"Ron! Ron are you having a stroke?" She speaks very slowly and loudly in case he's lost his hearing or turned stupid. "I came here to talk about my problem and you started talking about yours without giving me any actual advice!"

"Advice?" he squeaks out, sound like how he imagines the chipmunk would talk. "Advice? My advice to you is to get away. Get away from Ann Perkins."

"Ann isn't one of your insane, manipulative ex-wives, Ron." She shakes him again.

He blinks and clears his throat. His hand shakes as he raises his glass to his mouth, but he manages to take a sip of his drink and this helps to quell his fear somewhat. She releases her grip on his shirt and goes back to her chair.

"I guess this would be a bad time to tell you that one of your ex-wives is working at the library."

He drops the glass. It thunks on the wood and rolls several feet. The chipmunk starts and scurries up a nearby tree. Scotch splashes onto Ron's pants and seeps between the planks.


	51. The Art of Gaslighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's check on Donna and Tom real quick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swapped chapters 49 and 50 to improve flow. I wrote the current chapter 50 first and I didn't know Tammy II was going to show up. I sometimes lose control of my stories.

Tom sometimes weeps in his sleep. He wakes up with a wet pillow and glistening cheeks. He isn't sure why he cries now. He thinks it might be nightmares, but he doesn't remember them upon waking. He knows that Ben and Chris were real. He went skiing with them. April is just so mean. She's the meanest person. She's gotten meaner, he thinks. Her mean is different now, a little. He's not even thinking about her denial of Ben and Chris. There's something different and meaner about the things she says to him. Maybe he's gotten more sensitive. He doesn't know and he wipes the tears from his cheeks, looking up at his ceiling in the dark.

He got a job. He pays for things sometimes, but April is still really mean. Meaner. She still wants to kill him, he knows it. He needs to get out, but he doesn't know how. He's trapped. She's trapped. They're both trapped, and she's like a mean, trapped, little animal. If only someone would recognize one of his amazing business ideas as amazing. He lays in bed until his alarm goes off and he brainstorms new business ideas to pitch to Ron. When he gets up and picks out his suit, he decides that today will be a good day in spite of his night-weeping.

Ann comes in at lunchtime and asks the receptionist if she can speak to him, and he thinks today is most definitely a good day. He had just finished testing Mayor Meagle's lunch and he hurries down to the front desk, straightening his plaid tie. He smoothly walks in front of the desk and drapes his arm on the counter in front of the gorgeous woman.

"Good afternoon, my stunning lady suitor," he says and winks. "Here to take me, your lover, to lunch?"

"Uh...no." She takes a step away from him and asks, "Did you send me a plant?"

"Plant?" Did he hear her right? He's not sure.

"That's a no," she says and begins to leave. "I figured you would have included a note."

He thinks fast. He needs to recover from this screw up, "Yes? Yes, I think I did? It was green?"

Ann turns back around and his heart flutters, but then promptly sinks. She looks past him and speaks to the receptionist, "Can you point me toward April Ludgate's office, please?"

He follows her through the building saying her name the entire time, "Ann. Ann. Hey, Ann." He didn't know what she could want with April. April was so mean. Ann was completely ignoring him. She was playing hard to get. His persistence would pay off though. It always worked that way in the movies. Maybe she just couldn't hear him. Maybe she's a little deaf. "Ann. Ann. Ann."

April's office door is shut and it didn't look like she's in there, but Tom knows better. "She's probably under her desk," he told Ann. He's so helpful. He's demonstrating his value.

"Under her desk?" she finally responds to him, quizzically.

"Yeah, she sleeps under there." He then quickly adds, "Tell her Ben and Chris are real! Tell her you picked me up and I had skis and a Gore-tex coat!"

Ann opens the door and he starts to follow her in, but she closes it quickly. So quickly that it hits him and he stumbles back a little. He regains his footing and then presses his face up to the glass. It begins to fog up from his breath and he pouts. He's going to wait right here. He's going to look as sad and as cute as possible when she turns around and then she's going to have Ann tell everyone about his skis and Gore-tex coat.

~~~~~

Donna wonders what in the world the awkward public defender Ann wants with Tom as she begins to enjoy her delicious lunch from Wang Express. His face lit up when word reached him that the worst defense attorney in Indiana was downstairs. He had just established that the mayoral lunch was safe for her to eat, and he left the Faux-val Office with impressive speed. Donna wouldn't move that fast even if it something were chasing her, even the Mayor Menace. She would survive pursuit by tripping her enemies and sacrificing them to her assailant. The key was to escape smart, not fast. She needs to teach that to Tom.

She also wonders when Tom and April broke up. Had they broken up? Was Tom trying to cheat on April with Ann? Why was April trying to ask her for dating advice? What was going on in Pawnee's town hall? She couldn't keep up with all this dating drama on top of the Mayor Menace drama. Plus she had so much primetime TV drama to keep track of too. She had to prioritize.

As she scrolls through the latest celebrity gossip on her computer and enjoys her egg foo young, her mind begins to drift all over the place. She begins to become complacent. She thinks her psychic body guard might be right. Perhaps the Mayor Menace is gone, perhaps he moved along. Perhaps though, this is just the calm before the true shitstorm. She knows a shitstorm is coming. She needs to buy a new umbrella. She needs to be ready, even if no one else is.

She buzzes in her personal assistant, "I need to have a panic room built. I also need an escape tunnel to go from my panic room to my mansion. Make this happen. Raise the taxes if you have to!"

"I don't think that's-"

"Tax them! Tax them all!" she bellows then says, "Hm." She opens her fortune cookie and the fortune reads:

_The time to act is now. Procrastination is a weight upon your feet._

This is not a message from the Mayor Menace, it is a message from destiny.


	52. April and Ann Have Lunch

April thought she heard a knock. She ignores it and remains under her desk, hoping that the loser goes away and comes back later. Or never. Never would be preferable. She checks the time on her phone. They should assume she's out getting lunch or something. When she hears the door open and then close, she groans and pulls herself up so she can see over her desk. She's ready to rip the loser a new asshole, but her voice catches in her throat, and she starts to slowly duck back down.

"Did you send me a plant?" Ann asks suddenly, looking down at her with her default confused face.

"Um. Maybe?" April says, still only peeking over the top of her desk.

"Why?"

God, this woman is demanding as fuck. "An apology."

"For?"

She's not going to stop obviously, and April wants her to stop. "For being weird."

"To apologize for being weird, you sent me a plant with no note or explanation?"

"Duh," she says sharply and rolls her eyes. She pulls herself up and into her chair with a mighty groan. "I'm really busy. My job is super-important."

Ann cowers a little. She looks uncomfortable, pale. It's probably her weird stomach issues. She starts to turn and go, saying, "Oh. Sorry." Then as April watched, she seems to retract this thought. She turns back and asks, "Do you want to get lunch?"

This catches her off-guard. She sees Tom looking like a stupid idiot, mashing his face against her door. Ann surely stopped the moron, and she's probably just stalling to avoid him. Surely, Ann does not want to get lunch with her. That would be absolute nonsense. 

"Lunch, April? Do you want to get lunch?"

April didn't realize that she failed to respond. She stammers, "You want to get lunch with me?"

"We can order pizza or something," the woman shrugs unsurely. She still looks pale. "If you're busy then it's-"

"Pizza!" April exclaims. "Why didn't you say so?"

Ann squints at her, "I, uh, did..."

"Giggidy! We can use government money." She yanks open a desk drawer to rifle around for her Parks Department purchase card or whatever. "I bet you like lame shit on your pizza, don't you, Bland Perkins?"

"Get whatever you want. I'm going to get indigestion no matter what."

April rolled her eyes and picked up her desk phone. She cradled it with her shoulder and said, "Ugh, you're so old. You're old enough to, like, be my grandmother. Ancient. Your skin is so dry, it's like you've been mummified. Gross."

Ann looks at her hands, examining her dry skin that doesn't actually look dry at all. April thinks about toning it down, but then decides against it. She orders a pizza. She also really needs to get some blinds because Tom is still standing with his face pressed against the glass of her door. He's leaving a greasy impression where his face and hands are. She thinks he might be keeping away other people attempting to enter her office, so that's a plus, but she's tired of looking at him. She beckons Ann over behind her desk, moves her chair, and tells her to sit on the floor if her ancient, arthritic knees can handle it.

"My arthritis only flares up on rainy days," Ann reassures her.

The pizza arrives and Tom is still remaining steadfast. April threatens to scoop his eyes out with a melon baller, and this gets him out of the way. She grabs the pizza and closes the door quickly. She hears his muffled voice on the other side, "Hey, April! Can I have a slice?"

She ignores him and locks the door then ducks back behind her desk and places the box between her and Ann.

"Leslie and I got into a fight...sort of," Ann tells her. Like she cares.

"Don't ruin the pizza by talking," she responds.

Ann clears her throat and pauses her eating then says without much conviction, "No."

Taken back again, April bites her pizza aggressively and glowers. She let's Ann tell her about the "fight" she had with Leslie. People only talk to April about things when she allows it, and she allows this. She's feeling slightly subdued by the pizza, she tells herself. A well-fed April is much more agreeable in general. She has nothing to say about this "fight" although she does actually have things to say, seeing as she said some of them to Leslie just the other day herself.

Ann went to reach for another slice of pizza at the same time as April. The same slice. Their hands touch and April jerks away. She glares and says, "Ugh, control your huge hands."

Abruptly, Ann reaches up and touches her chin. She turns her head toward her and then kisses her. The kiss is light at first then more certain. Ann's hand is on her neck. She tastes like pizza. April likes pizza. This is confusing. Does she want to kiss Ann or does she want to eat her face? Does she perhaps want to eat pizza off of her naked body? It's all sort of running together.

She pulls away and says, "Oh, shit. I'm a dirty mistress."


End file.
